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EspañolLAKELAND, Fla. — On a cool and sunny afternoon at Joker Marchant Stadium, Cody Ponce stepped onto the mound with shaky legs and a fast heartbeat.
Just remember it’s a little kid’s game, he told himself. Go out there and have as much fun as I can and compete as much as I can.
Wearing a long-sleeved blue t-shirt under his No. 66 Blue Jays jersey, one red shoe and one blue shoe, Ponce took the mound for his first spring-training start in nearly five years. And despite the presence of a few nerves, he attacked the strike zone on the way to a promising Grapefruit League debut.
“It was a lot of fun.”
Speaking in the third base dugout before the game, manager John Schneider made it clear that Ponce isn’t fighting for a rotation spot — he has one. And once the Tigers took the field in their bright orange hats and jerseys, Ponce flashed the tools that made him the MVP of the Korean Baseball Organization in 2025.
In his first game action since signing for three years and $30 million, he threw his fastball 95-96 m.p.h. while mixing in regular change-ups and cutters, a pitch mix determined almost entirely by catcher Alejandro Kirk. It took Ponce 10 pitches to retire leadoff hitter Parker Meadows, but he struck him out swinging for his first out of the spring.
“Any time you have a battle like that it’s good,” Ponce said. “It allows you to focus in and make your misses a little smaller.”
Ponce followed that up by whiffing top prospect Kevin McGonigle and inducing a 5-3 groundout to end the inning. All told, he threw 22 pitches, 16 of which were strikes. It was a brief outing, as expected, but a promising step forward for Ponce, who spent the last four seasons in Korea before coming back stronger and more experienced.
“Where he is now is completely different,” Schneider said. “He has an unbelievable understanding of how his stuff works and where it plays in the zone. It’s still a little bit of a transition coming back to the big-leagues … but the stuff is legit, and it’s just a matter of seeing how it plays.”
As spring training continues, Ponce will develop an understanding of what big-league hitters want to do against him. And while that’s the biggest challenge he’ll face, there are others, too, like re-familiarizing himself with the baseball itself, as KBO baseballs are slightly smaller and tackier with higher seams.
“But a baseball’s a baseball,” Ponce said.
Wednesday’s outing against the Tigers is just step one, though. From here, he has a long way to go as he builds up from one inning to five or six. Yet it’s clear how the Blue Jays will use him.
“The expectation is pitching as a starting pitcher in the rotation,” Schneider said. “That’s why we sought him out. That’s why he sought us out for that opportunity, too. We’re giving him the runway to be built up as a starter.”
That means Eric Lauer is on the outside looking in for a rotation spot, though he’ll continue working as a starter since a spot could always open up in the next month. Regardless, the commitment the Blue Jays made to Ponce reflects optimism that he can be an effective starter at this level, and not the fringe swingman who posted a 5.86 ERA with the Pirates in parts of two seasons from 2020-21.
By obtaining a three-year, $30-million deal from the Blue Jays, Ponce became one of just five free agent starting pitchers to sign a free agent deal of three years or longer this off-season. The others – teammate Dylan Cease, Ranger Suarez of the Red Sox, Michael King of the Padres and Tatsuya Imai of the Astros – all signed for considerably higher annual salaries, but the commitment to Ponce was still substantial.
Generally speaking, teams willing to commit $30 million do so in the hopes of obtaining a mid-rotation starter or a late-inning reliever. For reference, the likes of Kenta Maeda, Nick Martinez, Sean Manaea, Matthew Boyd, Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Wacha, Frankie Montas and Jack Flaherty all signed multi-year free agent deals worth between $24-35 million in the last three years.
Thanks to their strong understanding of the Pacific Rim, the Blue Jays were on Ponce early, following with keen interest as he won KBO MVP with a 1.89 ERA and 252 strikeouts in 180.2 innings. Their growing familiarity with that market gives them confidence that his stuff will translate beyond Grapefruit League games like this into the regular season.
Plus, for what it’s worth, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins has typically done well spending on free agent starting pitching. While there have been misses like Tanner Roark and perhaps Yariel Rodriguez, there have also been clear successes like Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Yusei Kikuchi.
By signing Cease and Ponce this winter, the Blue Jays are hoping free agency can serve them well once again. And while there’s little point reading into the stat line so early in spring, Ponce took an important step Wednesday.
“We don’t really care about the results,” Schneider said. “We just want to see him operate in real time in a game, that’s really it.”
