Jays Sign Cody Ponce

The Blue Jays have signed Cody Ponce who pitched in the KBO last year.

Cody went 17-1 with a 1.89 ERA and was the KBO’s MVP. He’s a RHP, 31 years old. He adds to a deep starting rotation, unless they see him as a reliever.

He played for the Pirates in 2020 and 2021. In 2021, he had a 7.04 ERa i 38.1 innings.

He was number 32 on Keith Law’s top 50 free agent list and number 40 on Ben Clemens list. Ben figured he would get three years at $8 million a year. Jays are playing him $10 million a year for three years.

Ben said:

Ponce was Milwaukee’s second rounder way back in 2015 out of Division-II Cal Poly Pomona and was developed as a starter until the middle of 2018, when he became a long reliever. The following year, Ponce was sent to Pittsburgh in exchange for Jordan Lyles, and though he exhausted rookie eligibility as a Pirate, he never really grabbed hold of a role (he has just 55.1 big league innings to his name), and in 2022, he departed for Japan. Ponce didn’t get much better abroad until 2025, when he transitioned from NPB to the KBO, dramatically improved his conditioning, added two ticks to his fastball, and began to dominate hitters with a more split-looking offspeed pitch than before. He had a 1.89 ERA in an incredible 180 2/3 innings, struck out 36% of opponents and walked just 6%, and even at the very end of October, he was parked in the 94-97 mph range during Hanwha’s playoff run.

There are all kinds of indicators here (especially the change in Ponce’s physicality, and the stamina he’s had across nearly 200 innings when you factor in his playoff starts) to suggest that this improvement is real, and that Ponce can fit into a good team’s rotation. He’ll bump 98, his curveball has gorgeous depth, his best splitters fall off the table, and he commands the same upper-80s cutter we saw from him while he was stateside. It’s plausible that his curveball quality will dip with an MLB ball (there’s at least some volatility to that part of his game), but Ponce’s pure stuff looks better than Erick Fedde’s did when he came over on a two-year, $15 million deal a couple of years ago.

Welcome to the Jays, Cody.

Also the Jays made the Dylan Cease signing official. And Alek Manoah signed with the Angels for one-year, $1.95 million contract.