Is the Next St. Louis Cardinals Closer Seung-Hwan Oh?
The St. Louis Cardinals are reportedly using a closer committee after removing Trevor Rosenthal, but will Seung-hwan Oh be the choice in the end?
Over the weekend, the Cardinals made the announcement that they were going to remove Trevor Rosenthal from the closer role and that they were going to go to a closer-by-committee in his stead. As CBS Sports looked over the situation, they came to the same conclusion that I did – that the Cardinals really have one stand out candidate, Seung-hwan Oh.
The Cardinals signed Oh this January after 11 seasons in Korea, where he was a dominant reliever. Oh had a 1.81 ERA and 0.85 WHIP over 571 appearances and 646 1/3 innings, posting a 2.1 BB/9 and 10/7 K/9 in Korea before the Cardinals signed him. The crazy thing is that this season with the Cardinals so far, he’s posted even BETTER stats, with a 1.66 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, 1.9 BB/9, and 12.1 K/9.
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Oh’s not a guy that will blow you away with top end velocity, as he only reaches the low-90s, but he has tremendous movement and sink on his pitches, and he uses a common method in Asian baseball of having delays in the motion in order to throw off a hitter’s timing.
He’s not had a save yet for the Cardinals, but in his time in Korea, he posted 357 total saves, including 4 seasons of 40+ saves, so he’s very familiar with the closer role. In fact, his nickname, “The Final Boss”, comes from his closing days.
The Cardinals may start this situation as a “committee”, but as most closer committees, this one is likely to end up with a clear leader in a hurry. My educated guess is that the leader will be Oh.
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For those unfamiliar with Oh, here’s a look that MLB Statcast did looking at his pitching recently. Enjoy!