Ponce Upon a December: Jays Sign Reigning KBO MVP

While 29 American teams sit around twiddling their thumbs, the Toronto Blue Jays continue to run up their bill on the free agent market. After spending $210 million (with deferrals) to bring Dylan Cease in on Thanksgiving Eve, Toronto has now landed one of the top international free agents: right-handed pitcher Cody Ponce, late of the Hanwha Eagles of the KBO.

Even those of you who vaguely remember Ponce from his first stint in the majors might have trouble distinguishing him from any other of the dozens of big, replacement-level relievers the Pirates have thrown out there over the past decade. On some level, Ponce’s stint in Asia is just a chapter in a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-type deal he’s stuck in with John Holdzkom, Nick Kingham, and Colin Holderman.

If that guy is getting $30 million guaranteed over three years (to say nothing of his own blog post here to commemorate the signing), there must be quite a story.

Ponce last pitched in the majors in 2021, when he posted a 7.04 ERA in 38 1/3 innings. After that, he signed with Shohei Ohtani’s old team, the Nippon Ham Fighters of NPB. After a strong first season in Japan (a 3.35 ERA in 83 1/3 innings), Ponce’s performance regressed in 2023, leading first to a move to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, where he spent one disappointing season. After that, he left Japan entirely, signing with the aforementioned Hanwha Eagles of the KBO.

In his one season in Korea, well, I don’t know how else to say this other than: He beat total ass. Ponce made 29 starts, in which he posted a strikeout rate of 36.2% and a walk rate of 5.9%. Only seven qualified starters in AL/NL history have posted a 30-point K-BB% mark in a 162-game season: Pedro Martínez and Justin Verlander (who each did it twice), along with Gerrit Cole, Chris Sale, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer, and Corbin Burnes.

Here are some numbers that don’t need to be put into context: a 17-1 record with a 1.89 ERA, 0.97 WIP, .197 opponent batting average, and 252 strikeouts in 180 2/3 innings. (Ponce’s teammate, Hyun Jin Ryu, went 9-7 with a 3.23 ERA and 122 strikeouts in 139 1/3 innings. Estevan Florial was on this team too, since we’re just remembering some guys now.)

On his trip back to North America, Ponce will need to pack an extra bag for all his accolades: He set new KBO single-game and single-season strikeout records, and won both the league MVP and the Choi Dong-won Award, which is given to the top starting pitcher in the KBO.

The KBO’s YouTube channel has some excerpts from Ponce’s 18-strikeout game, along with some hilarious auto-dubbed English commentary.

That looks pretty nasty: In the eighth inning, around the 100-pitch mark, Ponce is hitting 96 with his fastball and touching 90 with a downward-hooking cutter and an absolutely disgusting-looking changeup. You can see why he cleaned up come awards season, and why the Jays are so interested.

But Ponce is far from the first American to light up the KBO, then parlay that success into a major league rotation spot. The last two Choi Dong-won Award winners were also Americans: Kyle Hart and Erick Fedde. Just earlier this week, I mentioned both Hart and Fedde in the context of Matt Manning, the latest American to try his hand (or his arm, rather) in Korea.

Fedde’s post-KBO record has been mixed, while Hart’s has just been underwhelming. Can Ponce fare better?

There’s only one way to find out, obviously, and going from the KBO back to North America requires more adjustment than meets the eye. Not only are the quality and style of play different, even the baseball itself is different in Korea. The American ball might rob Ponce of some of his breaking ball movement.

But this is not the same pitcher who once got traded straight-up for Jordan Lyles. Even in relief, Ponce was sitting at 93 mph with the Pirates; now he’s more 94-97. His conditioning has improved, and he’s learned a new changeup. In his Top 50 Free Agent writeup, Eric Longenhagen called it “split-looking,” which definitely captures the pitch’s hard, cut-the-elevator-cables downward action, though it turns out Ponce gets that movement from a kick change grip.

I do love a good changeup.

Despite his new toys, and his total dominance over KBO hitters, Ponce was only our no. 40 overall free agent and our no. 11 free agent starting pitcher. (Our no. 9 starter if you don’t count Brandon Woodruff and Shota Imanaga, who took qualifying offers after the Top 50 list was published.) Our crowdsourced estimates for Ponce’s contract were for about two years in the $8 million AAV range, while Ben Clemens came in over the top with a third year at the same AAV. That estimate accounts for all the uncertainty regarding the transition from the KBO.

The Blue Jays, like they did with Cease, came in over the top in order to get their man before the silly season really got going at the Winter Meetings. But even if Ponce only turns out to be a fifth starter or a medium-leverage reliever, $10 million a year over three years is basically fine. If he’s anything more than that, this contract is a massive steal.

Consider Fedde, who just ran out a two-year, $15 million contract that he signed on his way back from Korea. Fedde produced 3.4 WAR across two teams in his first year, and while the White Sox did trade him at the 2024 deadline, they moved him in a three-team deal with so many moving parts I’d rather just look at whether he lived up to his salary.

Fedde was good for one season, and so bad in 2025 he got traded for nothing, then was cut by the fourth-place team that had just traded for him. But he earned all $15 million with that 3.4 WAR season in 2024.

The bar for Ponce is higher, befitting his higher salary, but considering what even mediocre starting pitching sells for these days, it’s not that much higher. And Ponce’s stuff, and his KBO results, are on a different level from Fedde’s. It’s fair to expect more.

From the Blue Jays’ perspective, they’ve already replaced their two outgoing free agent starting pitchers: Scherzer and Chris Bassitt. Cease will sit at the front of the rotation, with Kevin Gausman and (if his postseason form is a preview of what’s to come) Trey Yesavage. Ponce gives the Blue Jays an alternative to José Berríos at the back of the rotation. Shane Bieber gives Toronto six starting pitchers, plus fellow KBO veteran Eric Lauer as additional depth.

Theoretically, that’s more starting pitching than the Blue Jays need, but if all seven of those guys are healthy and firing on all cylinders come Opening Day, I’m sure manager John Schneider will be both surprised and willing to pay the price of having a couple awkward conversations about who’s going to the bullpen.

We’ll see how the Blue Jays operate going forward, but this — jumping on elite free agent targets early, and taking significant but calculated risks on mid-tier and international guys — is what the big teams do. It’s how you act when you’re worried more about building the best team possible than getting the best value. It’s encouraging not only that the Blue Jays are behaving this way, but that the players they’re targeting are buying in as well.