St. Louis Cardinals make Seung-hwan Oh signing official

The St. Louis Cardinals have officially signed the “Final Boss” to a one year deal.

Yesterday, I told you that a deal with Seung-hwan Oh was close and was pending physical. The Cardinals held a press conference today to announce the signing of the Korean saves leader. The St. Louis Cardinals made official the signing of “The Final Boss” today, as Derrick Goold reported on twitter today, this will be a one year deal with an option for 2017.

According to Tom Ackerman on twitter, John Mozeliak had this to say about Oh, “We’re going to bring him into camp…hopefully competing for a late inning role. Trevor Rosenthal will be our closer”, this is of surprise to nobody.

Tom Ackerman also mentioned that the team will hire a full-time interpreter to work with Oh on and off the field. That interpreter will be a member of Mike Matheny‘s staff, who KMOX quoted as saying “this is a big signing for us”, which is good to hear.

Derrick Goold also shared that Oh will wear No. 26 and with the departure of Jason Heyward, Matheny will go back to wearing No. 22 for the Cardinals, making all of those No. 26 Matheny shirseys useless or classic relics now. However, all of the women who have been fawning of Mike, can now resurrect their No. 22 jerseys and shirseys alike.

The part that I like the most about this deal is that is just a one year deal, with the option for 2017. This way, if the deal works out the Cardinals can exercise the option on him for next year, and if it doesn’t they can cut bait. I also like that this is another option for the Cardinals to use instead of Jonathan Broxton, a signing I did not like.

Regardless, this is a really good signing for the club. The team has mentioned that they would keep an eye out on the relief market and attempt to bring in a veteran.

While Oh is not an MLB veteran, he is a solid option and comes regarded as the best Korean relief pitcher of all time. Hopefully, this signing works out for the Cardinals and Oh turns out to Pat Neshek 2.0.