{"id":321894,"date":"2025-12-03T03:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T03:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321894\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T03:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T03:38:07","slug":"blue-jays-agree-to-deal-with-kbo-mvp-cody-ponce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321894\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays agree to deal with KBO MVP Cody Ponce"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Seeking to augment a starting rotation that\u2019s already seen its share of turnover in recent months, the Blue Jays reached a three-year, $30 million deal with right-hander Cody Ponce<\/a> Tuesday evening, according to industry sources.<\/p>\n

The agreement, which is pending a physical, brings the former second-round draft pick back to the major leagues after stints in Japan and Korea. Most recently, Ponce posted a 1.89 ERA with 252 strikeouts in 180.2 innings for the KBO\u2019s Hanwha Eagles, a performance that put him on the radar of MLB teams.<\/p>\n

He was named the KBO’s MVP last season. <\/p>\n

Having bolstered their presence in Asia in recent years, the Blue Jays tracked Ponce\u2019s progress diligently, noticing his impressive results and added velocity (he sat 94-97 m.p.h. in October, according to FanGraphs). With a 36.2 per cent strikeout rate and 5.9 per cent walk rate, the right-hander dominated the opposition in Korea. Thanks to their understanding of the Pacific Rim market and increased investment there, the Blue Jays were ready to move swiftly on a pitcher who has intrigued them for months.<\/p>\n

Though he pitched exclusively as a starter in 2025, Ponce also has extensive experience out of the bullpen, giving the Blue Jays flexibility if needed. That versatility could be useful in the post-season or, depending on the health and performance of other Toronto pitchers, in the regular season.<\/p>\n

So far this off-season the Blue Jays have already added three starting pitchers as Shane Bieber exercised his player option and Dylan Cease signed a Blue Jays free-agent record seven-year, $210 million deal. As a result, the Blue Jays\u2019 starting pitching options include:<\/p>\n

Kevin Gausman
Dylan Cease
Shane Bieber
Trey Yesavage
Jose Berrios
Cody Ponce
Eric Lauer
Bowden Francis<\/p>\n

Inevitably, injuries will occur throughout the season and the Blue Jays will shuffle players in and out of the starting rotation accordingly. If they have more than five starters healthy at a given moment, Francis has options and Lauer and Ponce have experience out of the bullpen, so manager John Schneider can get creative.<\/p>\n

While nothing has officially been ruled out it\u2019s now harder to see a path to a reunion with Chris Bassitt or Max Scherzer. Michael King was also of interest to the Blue Jays, but the fit isn\u2019t as clean there either anymore.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, more starting pitching options are a good thing, so Ponce\u2019s presence makes the Blue Jays a better team. Still, they have work remaining with a late-inning relief arm likely to be a target and position players like Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette still possibilities. There\u2019s no guarantee the Blue Jays land a bat of that calibre, though, and their markets appear to be developing more slowly.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the Blue Jays have meaningfully improved their pitching staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Seeking to augment a starting rotation that\u2019s already seen its share of turnover in recent months,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-321894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}