Eagles ace Cody Ponce voted 2025 KBO MVP

Cody Ponce of the Hanwha Eagles speaks after winning the Korea Baseball Organization regular-season MVP award during the awards ceremony at Lotte Hotel World in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

Hanwha Eagles starting pitcher Cody Ponce is the MVP of Korean baseball for 2025.

Ponce earned the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) regular-season MVP honor on Monday following a historic campaign in his first season here. Ponce collected 96 out of 125 votes cast by baseball media, with Samsung Lions first baseman Lewin Diaz finishing in second place with 23 votes.

Ponce, 31, won the pitching Triple Crown by leading the KBO with 17 wins, a 1.89 ERA and 252 strikeouts, a new single-season record by 27.

The American right-hander also set a KBO record for the most consecutive wins by a pitcher from the start of a season with 17. He lost just once this year for a league-leading winning percentage of .944.

Ponce also had the KBO's lowest walks and hits per inning pitched with 0.94 — no one else finished below 1.00 — and finished second overall with 180 2/3 innings pitched.

Diaz also had a season to remember, setting the single-season record with 158 RBIs and leading the KBO with 50 home runs, most ever by a foreign-born player, and a .644 slugging percentage, but he still came up short against Ponce.

Ponce was not charged with an earned run in 13 of his 29 starts and struck out at least 10 batters in eight of them. On May 17, Ponce set a KBO record for the most strikeouts in a nine-inning game by punching out 18 batters against the SSG Landers.

With Ponce leading the rotation, the Eagles posted the second-best record in the regular season at 83-57-4 (wins-losses-ties) and reached the postseason for the first time since 2018. They also had the lowest team ERA with 3.55.

Ponce received a trophy and a Kia EV6 vehicle at the awards ceremony at a Seoul hotel.

Ponce is the first Eagles player to win MVP since his current rotation mate Ryu Hyun-jin did so in 2006.

He is the ninth foreign-born player to win the MVP honor in the KBO, joining former OB Bears infielder Tyrone Woods (1998), Doosan Bears pitcher Daniel Rios (2007), NC Dinos infielder Eric Thames (2015), Bears pitcher Dustin Nippert (2016), Bears pitcher Josh Lindblom (2019), KT Wiz outfielder Mel Rojas Jr. (2020), Bears pitcher Ariel Miranda (2021), and Dinos pitcher Erick Fedde (2023).