Former Kia Tigers pitcher Yang Hyeon-jong has signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers. Yang was the second round pick of the Tigers in the 2007 draft out of Dongsung High School in Seoul and has played for them ever since. He led the league in ERA in 2015 but his best season was undoubtedly 2017 when he went 20-6 and led the Tigers to the Korean Series Championship. He was not only MVP of the Series but also MVP of the regular season, the first ever player to win both awards in the same season.
His earliest baseball card appears to be from the 2014 Superstar Baseball Season One set (#SBC01-107), the first licensed KBO set since the early 00's. He appears in many of the sets done by SMG/Ntreav/Duael between 2014 and 2016 although his cards are frequently either a short print or an insert. He also appears in most of the SCC sets from 2017 (well, 2017-ish - that set came out in 2018) to 2020. There appear to be two pages listing his cards over at Trading Card DB - one under the name Hyeon-Jong Yang and the other under Yang Hyeon-Jong. Here are some of his KBO cards:
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| 2014 Super Star Baseball Season One #SBC-107 |
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| 2015 Hell's Fireball #PA01-KI010 |
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| 2016-17 Super Star Baseball Black Edition #SBCBK-020-AS |
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| 2017 SCC #SCC-01-KA11/N |
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| 2018 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR-01/009 |
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| 2019 SCC KBO Collection 2 #SCCR-19/086 |
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| 2020 SCC Premium #SCCP1-20/K05 |
Yang has played for the Korean National Team in a number of international tournaments, most notably the 2017 World Baseball Classic and the 2019 Premier 12. The only card I know of that depicts him in a National Team uniform is his "Paper Prospects" insert from the 2017 Bowman set:
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| 2017 Bowman #BP141 |
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