DUNEDIN, Fla. — In terms of personality alone, the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting staff is going to be different this year without Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer around. Newcomers Dylan Cease and Cody Pence, however, give them a chance to once again feature baseball’s most interesting rotation.
“I didn’t think we could get any bigger characters than Bass and Max but we might be pretty close or even surpassing that — they’re pretty interesting guys, both of them,” a grinning Kevin Gausman said on a quiet Sunday at the Player Development Complex before turning serious. “The first thing that jumps off the page when you watch them throw is their stuff. It’s just incredible. … We have a chance, as a staff, to possibly lead all of baseball in strikeouts. Their swing and miss stuff is off the charts.”
Adding more ability to miss bats, rather than replacing eccentricity, is what the Blue Jays were aiming for during the off-season, when the two veterans became free agents and they signed Cease, for $210 million over seven years, and Ponce, for $30 million over three.
Their pitching staff in 2025 collectively ranked sixth in the majors in strikeouts at 1,430, but the rotation contributed only 55 per cent of those punchies with 786, while surrendering 140 of the club’s 209 homers against, or 67 per cent, the game’s third-highest total.
A full season of Trey Yesavage along with Cease, who’s struck out at least 214 batters in each of the past five years, and Ponce, who struck out 252 batters in 180.2 innings in the Korean league a year ago with a repertoire that projects well to North America, should help swing both those numbers.
Conversely, the Blue Jays bullpen, which ranked fifth with 644 strikeouts last season and allowed the 13th-fewest homers against at 69, was bolstered with an element it lacked in Tyler Rogers, the submarine set-up man adept at inducing weak contact.
Essentially, then, the aim was to diversify the way the staff gets outs both in the rotation and bullpen.
“We did some really good things last year, obviously, and (there are) always ways to get better, so can you improve (through) a starting staff that can miss more bats?” said manager John Schneider. “We talked in the off-season, there’s value in different ways (to get outs). It could be a quick six-pitch inning or it could be a couple strikeouts and a pop up. It’s definitely a fine line.
“When you look at the damage we gave up last year, we’re trying to minimize some of that. With the swing and miss comes some risk-reward, too. We’re trying to find the right blend of guys both in the rotation and in the bullpen.”
On the starting front Shane Bieber, who is still throwing out to 90 feet but is expected to stretch that out later this week, will eventually add swing and miss, too, having averaged 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings throughout his career. Jose Berrios, meanwhile, will be seeking to reduce the downward trend in his strikeout numbers as he aims to rebound from a rough second half and the elbow inflammation that ended his season.
Still, Cease and Ponce are expected on to be the key drivers there and they’ve already opened eyes. Gausman likes the way both are seeking ways to improve, even as he’s impressed by what he’s seen in a limited sample.
“You can see why Cease is a strikeout artist — he really hides the ball, that’s one thing I didn’t really know until watching him throw his bullpens — the ball just hides behind his back and actually comes from right behind his head,” said Gausman. “Cody, I wasn’t expecting him to throw as many strikes as he did, but, man, he looked very polished, filling up the zone, misses are small. It seems like he really has a plan.”
Ponce very much does, one crafted last season, his fourth pitching in Asia and first in the Korea Baseball Organization. A year ago, he was at a training camp in Melbourne, Australia with the Hanwha Eagles working to fuse his joy for the game into better performance.
Drafted in the second round by Milwaukee in 2015, he was traded to Pittsburgh for Jordan Lyles at the 2019 deadline, debuted with the Pirates in 2020 and was released by them in November 2021, which led him to Japan. The journey taught him “who I am as a person, as a baseball player,” and helping him find “his inner child,” which includes “falling more in love Star Wars.”
“One thing that I’ve done very well is learn how to adapt to culture coming from America and going to Japan and then Korea,” he said. “I’m going to try to stick with what I’ve been doing best and have fun.”
Better fastball command, a wipeout slider he’s working to refine the shape of, and a kick change he described as “unique to my big hands,” should give him ample tools to successful make the transition back to the majors. Also helpful is that he retains the humility to say, “I have a lot to learn, I don’t know much, been a while since I’ve been up here, so I’m just going to try to pick everybody’s brains and try to have the most success.”
Gausman is front and centre in that process, be it trying to help Cease with finding a changeup that will allow him to throw it harder rather than like eephus, or Ponce, with how to approach big-league hitters after four years away.
The kick change “is a completely different animal, out of his hand, it like knuckles for a split second, so the spin on it is really unique,” said Gausman, but “one thing I’ve talked with him about, it’s such a good pitch and it’s going to be so hard to hit, teams are just going to eliminate it.”
“He’s going to have to show that he can throw it for strikes,” Gausman continued. “The good thing for him, which isn’t necessarily something that I have, is he has three other pitches that are really good, so he doesn’t have to lean on that pitch as much as I have to lean on my split.”
The spring is just beginning — the Blue Jays hold their first full-squad workout Monday — so there’s lots of time for him and others to iron out the various items they’re working on, all while keeping things interesting along the way.
“They’re funny, man, both of them,” Gausman said of Ponce and Cease. “They’re both weird and I think the best pitchers in the game are a little weird.”
If that’s the case, the weirder the better for the Blue Jays.
