Via George King: The Yankees are among the teams scouting South Korean right-hander Seung-Hwan Oh. He will not be a free agent this winter but is expected to be made available through the posting process. The Yankees are said to have interest in Japanese righty Masahiro Tanaka and Korean righty Suk-Min Yoon as well.
Oh, 31, has spent the last nine years with the Samsung Lions and, aside from injury-riddled 2009 and 2010 seasons, has more or less been the best closer in the Korea Baseball Organization during that time. He had a 1.74 ERA with 54 strikeouts and only ten walks in 51 2/3 innings this summer. His career stats are right here. As for a scouting report, King says Oh’s fastball is “between 94 and 96 mph and he has a splitter that disappears,” which is pretty much all the internet has to offer. There’s some video on YouTube.
Only two Asian relievers (Akinori Otsuka and Shinji Mori) have successfully gone through the posting process and both required six-figure bids. That was a long time ago though (2003 and 2005, respectively), so I’m guessing it’ll cost a couple million to talk to an established dominant closer these days. The track record of relievers coming over from Asia is actually really good and the Yankees need bullpen help, plus it would be neat to see them go outside the box for help with a guy like Oh. Assuming he’s good, of course.
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