Japanese Baseball Cards: Oh Seung-hwan

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Oh Seung-hwan

I have a list of about eight or nine players who retired as of the end of last season that I've been meaning to get around to doing posts about but, for whatever reason, I haven't had a chance to. I'm going to start now and hopefully I can get all of them done before the season starts in just over four weeks.

Former KBO, NPB and MLB closer Oh Seung-hwan announced his retirement last August, effective at the end of the season. Oh was drafted by the Samsung Lions out of Dankook University in 2005 and made his KBO debut early in that season. He went 10-1 with 16 saves and an ERA of 1.18 in 61 games that year, earning the Rookie Of The Year award. He remained with Samsung for another eight years, racking up a total of 277 saves despite missing time in 2009 and 2010 with shoulder and elbow injuries. He led the league in saves in five of his nine KBO seasons,

He departed Korea for Japan after the 2013 season, signing a two year deal with the Hanshin Tigers. He immediately stepped into the closer role for Hanshin and continued his stellar performance from Samsung. He had a Central League leading total of 39 saves in 2014 along with an ERA of 1.76. His ERA grew by almost a full run to 2.73 in 2015 but he still led the league in saves with 41.

After two seasons in Nishinomiya, he was off to America, signing with the St Louis Cardinals. His first year in St Louis went well, going 6-3 with 19 saves and a 1.92 ERA, causing the Cards to exercise their 2017 option of his contract. His second year went less well with his ERA ballooning to 4.10 although he still notched 20 saves.

A free agent going into 2018, Oh signed a deal with the Texas Rangers, only to have the Rangers back out of the deal when a physical revealed an "abnormality" in his right arm. The Blue Jays signed him a few weeks later and he went 4-3 with a 2.68 ERA in 48 games, mostly in middle relief. He pitched well enough that Toronto dealt him to the Colorado Rockies in late July. He went 2-0 with a 2.43 ERA in 25 games for the playoff-bound Rockies.

Injuries caught up with him the following year as his ERA skyrocket to 9.33 in 21 games before going on the disabled list in June. I'm not sure if it was related to the "abnormality" that the Rangers found the year before but he returned to Korea mid-season to have surgery on his right elbow and announced that he'd be returning to Samsung when his contract was up with the Rockies. The Rockies went ahead and released him in July, a year to the day that they'd gotten him in the trade with Toronto.

He was healthy going into 2020 but had a delay to his being able to play in games. He'd been suspended by the league in 2016 for gambling at a casino in Macau - Korea has strict anti-gambling laws - and had to serve the suspension now that he was back in Korea. He ended up racking up 18 saves in just 45 games that year. He seemed to be back to his old self, saving at least 30 games in each of the next three seasons (including a league leading 44 in 2021), although his ERA grew each year. He had 27 saves in 2024 but his ERA was almost 5 and I think Samsung moved him out of the closer role last year (although I'm not sure how healthy he was). He only appeared in 12 games with an ERA of 8.00 with no saves.

He ended his career with 549 saves across the three leagues - 427 in KBO, 80 in NPB and 42 in MLB. He lead his league in saves a total of eight times (2006-08, 2011-12, 2014-15 and 2021). He had two Hall Of Fame nicknames - "Stone Buddha" and "Final Boss". He was a member of the Korean National Team for several major tournaments, including the 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2017 World Baseball Classics and well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics (where Korea took the Gold) and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (where they didn't).

He's got an interesting mix of baseball cards. There were no officially licensed cards for KBO during his career until 2014, his first season in Japan, so his first officially licensed KBO card wasn't until his return in 2020. His first card at all appears to be from Japan in the 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes -WBC set. Despite his being on four WBC teams, this is his only card from the tournament. His only other card from his pre-NPB days is from the unlicensed "KBO Game" set from 2010. He appeared on many cards in NPB in 2014 and 2015 as well as Topps cards between 2016 and 2019. He appeared in several of SCC's KBO sets from 2020 to 2024. Here's some of his cards, including all the KBO cards of him that I have: