Cardinals agree to deal with Seung-hwan Oh

The St. Louis Cardinals dove into the international market on Monday to help fortify their bullpen, announcing they've signed Korean right-hander Seung-hwan Oh.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Dispatch reports it's a one-year deal with an option for 2017. The total value of the contract could reach around $5 million.

"I was looking for a new challenge and a new environment," Oh said of his move to MLB.

Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said Oh will compete for a late-inning role in front of closer Trevor Rosenthal.

"We felt like we wanted to do something to ramp (the bullpen) up," Mozeliak told reporters. "We were looking at a lot of different ways to do that. As we stated a few years back, we were going to spend some energy and resources trying to get a better understanding of the Asian market, specifically what was happening in Korea and Japan. And ironically, we were able to end up signing a player who is actually Korean, but played in Japan."

The 33-year-old was not subject to a posting fee because his contract with Japan's Hanshin Tigers had reached its completion.

Oh, who was set to serve a 72-game suspension during the upcoming Korea Baseball Organization season for his connections to gambling, goes by the nicknames "Stone Buddha" and "The Final Boss."

He recorded 41 saves for the Tigers last season, and is the all-time Korean saves leader with 277.

In 498 career games between Korea and Japan, Oh owns an ERA of 1.81, while striking out 772 batters across 646 1/3 innings pitched.