Once considered a potential bargain at the beginning of the MLB offseason, Cody Ponce is cashing in on his historic and MVP-winning 2025 season for the Hanwha Eagles in the Korean Baseball Organization. Just days after adding Dylan Cease atop their rotation, the Toronto Blue Jays, sources told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal on Tuesday, have agreed to a three-year deal with Ponce.
The deal, which is for three years and $30 million, a league source said, is the richest deal for a pitcher returning from Korea, beating Erick Fedde’s two-year, $15 million pact with the Chicago White Sox prior to the 2024 season.
Free-agent right-hander Cody Ponce is finalizing a three-year agreement with the Blue Jays, sources tell @TheAthletic.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 2, 2025
The Jays entered the offseason identifying pitching as a priority, and have attacked the market aggressively. With questions around the 2026 contributions of José Berríos, along with Shane Bieber and Trey Yesavage potentially requiring monitored workloads next year, Ponce adds needed depth to Toronto’s rotation.
A former second-round pick by the Milwaukee Brewers out of Cal Poly Pomona in 2015, Ponce was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019 and made his debut in 2020, posting a 3.18 ERA over five games (three starts). He followed that up with a 7.04 ERA in 2021 in 15 games (two starts).
His time in MLB was characterized by a solid walk rate (6.1 percent in 2021) and excellent chase rate (32.4 percent in 2021). His extension, or how close a pitcher’s release is to home plate, was among the best in the big leagues, sitting in the 96th percentile. Of the 735 pitchers who threw a pitch in 2021, Ponce (6-foot-6) was 29th in extension, in line with the likes of Aroldis Chapman (6-4) and Sean Manaea (6-5).
Following the 2021 season, Ponce was granted his release to begin a new venture in Japan in the country’s Nippon Professional Baseball league. He promptly signed with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, for whom he played two seasons before going to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in 2024.
In his three seasons in NPB, Ponce posted a 10-16 record with a 4.54 ERA in 202 innings.
In 2025, Ponce fully blossomed into an MVP-winning pitcher in Korea. His velocity ticked up and he added a splitter as his top secondary pitch, an offering the Jays continue to covet. With Hanwha, Ponce went 17-1 with a 1.89 ERA over 180 2/3 innings. He set multiple records: most strikeouts in one KBO game with 18 on May 17; and the most strikeouts in a single season with 252.
Ponce won the Choi Dong-won Award, the KBO’s equivalent to the Cy Young Award, as well as the KBO MVP award, earning 96 of 125 votes cast by baseball media.
Five years after his last big-league pitch, Ponce now joins a Blue Jays team hoping to return to the World Series. He’ll enter a rotation with Cease, Bieber, Yesavage and Kevin Gausman set for Opening Day roles. While Berríos may enter the 2026 season competing for a job or as rotation depth, this also further signals the Jays’ openness to trading the veteran righty.
With both Bieber and Gausman on expiring contracts, the Jays now have long-term rotation options in Yesavage, Ponce and Cease, as well.