Cody Ponce is far from the first Major Leaguer to go overseas and return having found something that makes him a better pitcher than his first go-around in the big leagues. Asked what he found, however, the new Blue Jays pitcher doesn’t cite a mechanical tweak, a new pitch or a knowledge of his what makes him great.
Asked what he unlocked during his historically dominant season in Korea this year, Ponce replied, “My inner child.”
He was being neither coy nor elusive. To hear the former Brewers draft pick and Pirates starter describe it during a refreshingly open Zoom session with reporters, it really was that simple.
“I felt like I was having a lot more fun out there,” said Ponce, author of a 17-1 record, 1.89 ERA and a KBO-record 252 strikeouts for the Hanwha Eagles.
The inner child in Ponce is a big figure. He’s a Star Wars fanatic who not only collects memorabilia, but will watch Star Wars movies before a game. He wore No. 30 with Hanwha, he half-joked, because of his initials: He can’t be C-3PO, but he could be CP-30. As he talked with the media on Tuesday evening, he had a Star Wars-style helmet on the shelf over his shoulder that he wore walking out onto the field for the KBO All-Star Game.
“It’s not an All-Star Game like it is in the states, where it’s an actual game,” Ponce explained. “This is like a show, so everybody dresses up, everybody has their own personalities, everybody does different things. And I was like, ‘Wow, I get to express my little kid in me and turn into Darth Vader.’”
That little kid had gotten lost over the last few years as the struggles piled up, from an 0-6 record and 7.04 ERA with the Pirates in 2021 to three years of bouncing between the major and minor leagues in Japan.
A year ago, Ponce said, he was on the couch with his wife Emma debating whether to go to Korea or return stateside to play independent ball as they prepared to welcome their first child. His baseball career felt a little more like a business, one that appeared to be at a crossroads. A return to the Major Leagues seemed half a world away, whether he was on the other side of the globe or not.
“My wife and I had done three years in Asia at that point,” he explained, “and wanted to try to start a family, and wanted to be around our family a lot more. But I don’t think as a competitive ballplayer, you ever take away the opportunity of playing in the big leagues.”
Fortunately for Ponce, he could turn to family to find that little kid again, to Emma’s brother: All-Pro tight end George Kittle.
“Not so much of a conversation between my brother-in-law and I,” Ponce said, “just like the way he plays the game of football. Being such an angry game, the way he talks about when he’s on the field and how he kind of jokes with people, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s got to be something different.’
“I am a huge Star Wars nerd, and I will always be a Star Wars nerd, but that was because he allowed me to remember those kind of things that I loved about when I was a kid. I saw the way he was playing the game of football, and I was in this view like, ‘Wow, you can play such an angry game and be having fun at the same time, yet still have this type of tenacity, this type of drive, this type of competitiveness, all at the same time.’
“I was like, ‘OK, well, how do I be a kid again?’ And now I watch Star Wars before every single one of my starts.”
Not only did Ponce’s childlike enthusiasm join him in Korea, so did Emma, a big change from his time in Japan. He adjusted to the culture of the clubhouse and the country with help from new Hanwha teammate and former Blue Jays starter Hyun Jin Ryu, who also taught him to be less predictable in his repertoire. He connected with the Eagles’ analytics team and made some adjustments, throwing multiple versions of his offspeed pitches.
The result was KBO’s equivalent of the Death Star, and not only a return to the big leagues, but on a three-year, $30 million contract, a massive bit of stability as Cody and Emma welcome their first child, a baby girl.
Ponce is already introducing his daughter to Star Wars, to connect his inner child with his actual child. And the inner child gets to live out his dream while supporting his family.
“Every little kid’s dream, or 31-year-old’s dream, is still possible,” he said. “Did I think what happened this year was something that would transpire? No. I just wanted to go out there, perform the best I could and try to put the possibility of coming back [to the Majors] with at least one offer. Then this kind of all happened.”