Cardinals Find Setup Man In Oh

ST. LOUIS—After a few years of learning the landscape and a few failed attempts to land talent from it, the Cardinals reached abroad and into Asia this January to find the reliever they desired.

The Cardinals signed Korean closer Seung Hwan Oh to a one-year deal and made what they hope is a significant stride into a market they have explored and have wanted to find a way to exploit. Oh, 33, had 80 saves and a 2.25 ERA total in the past two seasons with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s major league, and he had sought a chance to prove himself in the majors. The Cardinals believe he can be the chief setup man for closer Trevor Rosenthal.

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As we stated all along we felt like we wanted to do something to ramp it up,” general manager John Mozeliak said. “We were looking at a lot of different ways to do that. We were going to spend some energy and some resources trying to get a better understanding of the Asian market.”

The Cardinals began compiling a scouting report on Oh during the 2009 World Baseball Classic. The team also invested more scouting time and resources in learning the professional leagues in Korea and Japan, while also developing a way, analytically, to predict how talent in Asia would translate to the majors. A key part of that algorithm was comparing the success of players who had made the move, and unifying the statistical models with the evaluations from scouts.

The past two winters, the Cardinals have submitted bids for a Korean player and each time they came shy of being the highest bidder, finishing second to Pittsburgh for infielder Jung Ho Kang before the 2015 season and somewhere behind Minnesota for Byung-Ho Park this past winter. Oh was appealing to the Cardinals because he was a true free agent and not attached to a posting fee.

Oh arrives with two nicknames that he said fans gave him in Korea: “Stone Buddha” and “The Final Boss.” He prefers “The Final Boss.”

REDBIRD CHIRPS

• The Cardinals rehired the managers at all eight of their minor league affiliates. Mike Shildt will lead Triple-A Memphis.

• Breyvic Valera hit .292/.381/.401 for Bravos de Margarita in Venezuela after hitting .236/.301/.297 at Double-A.