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.