The Most Iconic Diamond Dynasty Cards in MLB The Show History
By Noah Wright
Takashi Okazaki Series Shohei Ohtani (MLB 22)
Shohei Ohtani was the cover athlete for MLB The Show 22 and was the AL MVP runner-up, so of course, he got an outstanding endgame card. But this wasn’t any normal card. This card was designed by Takashi Okazaki, a Japanese artist who created the popular manga Afro Samurai. SDS brought Takashi in to design cards of many MLB stars, both past and present, in a manga/anime art style. But the best card in this series is Ohtani’s 99 overall card.
As a pitcher, Ohtani was one of the best in the game, with 114 hits/9 and 110 K/9. He was easy to control as well, with 98 BB/9 and 90 control. With 125 clutch, he played above his stats. He threw five pitches, including a slider, four-seamer, splitter, cutter, and curveball. Ohtani’s fastball had the outlier quirk on it, meaning that it was hitting 100-103 MPH regularly in the game.
Ohtani is just as good of a hitter as he is a pitcher, and he came with great batting stats, too. Against right-handed pitching, he had 103 contact and 125 power. When facing a lefty, he was given 103 contact and 105 power. Vision wasn’t a major issue either at 91. Once you got on base with him, he could move extremely well with 91 speed and 72 stealing.