As I have stated in previous articles and videos, this year for my personal collection/investments the focus will be on Ohtani. He is simply the best player in baseball presently, and maybe in the history of the game. Why would I be speculating on a Double A prospect when that money can go into Ohtani?
Below is an excellent video and transcript from the guys at Blabbin bout Slabbin. I appreciate their research and content, and I believe you will as well.
HOW COOL IS THIS CASE?
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Today we have a very timely topic because just last night Shohi Otani established the 50/50 Club, as he is the first player in history to do it! We are seeing a lot of high-end sales of Shohi Otani. In this article we are going to talk about some less expensive Ohtani cards.
10 cards we really like that are currently under $100 at the time of this writing. Unfortunately, some of the cards we wanted to put on this list no longer qualify, and frankly by the time many read this you will be shocked that some of these cards at one time sold for under $100. The market is constantly changing and as we should expect the Shohi Otani market has been on a constant up tick since the day he entered the league.
It’s warranted at this point but a couple cards we wanted to include on this list but can’t are his Chrome rookie debut. We figured a PSA 10 of a base card that isn’t even the real rookie would be under 100 bucks no it’s over $200.
The update pink in a raw is nearly $400.
This was a fun exercise to look for investment Shohi Otani cards under a hundred bucks. We did find some good ones that we feel are worth your investigation
Number 10 is the 2019 Topps Flagship Otani we like his gold parallel so these are numbered out of 2019 they’re always numbered to the year Topps has done gold parallels since 1992. It’s the longest running Flagship parallel and it this is a hitting image with a full color parallel the last year you know Topps did all gold or all black on their cards. This is just a really cool Otani card and extremely affordable last we looked Jeff these were under $150. yeah the uh The gold has a nice history and the combination of the gold with the Gold Cup is perfect
Number 9 so next we’re going to look at the 2021 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor. It’s a 1991 Stadium Club variation. It’s one of my favorite Ohtani images ever put on cardboard. He’s just probably just struck somebody out, maybe won a game, but it’s one of my favorite images of him on the mound and one of my favorite images of him all around. It shows his grit and determination and the energy he puts in the game. The 91 variation is just cool it’s got a nice Nostalgia feel as well it’s from the first year Stadium Club Design This is just a great looking card a lot of eye Appeal on this and the intensity is great.
At Number 8 we’re going to combine a couple cards here we’re going to cheat a little bit just because we like to talk about Ohtani cards but blue refractors at this point with what he’s done Golds are pretty much out the $100 window in any Chrome set but the Blues still look great and there are some really good Otani images that look especially good with Blue. So his 2020 Topps Chrome and his 2019 Bowman Chrome are both really great with cool images. In blue refractors numbered out of 150, we like these cards a lot.
You can’t go wrong with these hitting images. The design of these cards especially the 2019 Bowman set looks great in blue it jumps against his angels uniform very nicely. I know a lot of times we talk about the color match but sometimes the blue really makes the other colors stand out and I think that’s the case with the Topps Chrome & Bowman Chrome. They have produced Blue Refractors for a long time so there’s a lot of history. Take a look at these two cards, for under $100 they are great additions to any Ohtani collection.
Number 7 2019 Bowman’s Best Atomic Refractor This is a really cool image of Ohtani swinging with his classic follow through. Like all atomics this card is extremely shiny and colorful, the photo we put up here won’t do it justice you got to have it in your hand. The 2019 Bowman’s Best card with the follow through is just a tremendous looking card. This is a great chance to pick up some second-year cards of Otani without breaking the bank that have really cool pictures.
Number 6 we wanted to make sure we got at least one cool look Otani as a Dodger card on this list. The one we’re going to go with is the 2024 Topps Heritage Refractor so these are numbered out of 575. Knd of a cool image but the big thing is the design, 2024 Heritage uses that 75 Topps design and there is so much color on these cards, the 1975 Topps design is one of my favorites of all time.
This card features a real picture of him in a Dodger’s uniform. Yes there are other Heritage refractors, purple. silver refractor. The purple one’s more common and the silver one despite being lower numbered appears to sell for less. The silver really takes the color out of the card & takes away the classic 75 design.
NUMBER 5 we found a rookie that fits the bill a chrome rookie no less it’s Ohtani’s 2018 Finest and it’s another hitting image. The background’s a little crazy, sort of 1990s geometry background on the finest but it is a ROOKIE and it is him hitting and it’s under $100. There are so few Otani rookies that qualify at under a 100 bucks especially if you want a chrome one and this is a hitting image too, so honestly this is probably just a matter of time before this creeps closer and closer and closer to 100 bucks the refractors don’t qualify but the base card sure does. It’s not super mass printed and we are talking raw cards so if you can find a nice raw Finest hitting image I think it’s great card to add to your collection.
NUMBER 4 we’re going back to 2019 uh Topps Flagship Otani has an Short Print in there and it’s called Bat on Shoulder it looks like he’s got the plate maybe in between pitches and he’s got his really big batting gloves that he wears. This is a cool card and it seems based on the PSA numbers it seems like there might be slightly fewer of these than there are of the Gold Cup Acuna or the Sotto Short Prints. So right now raw, at the time of this writing, this card is under $100. Of course we can’t guarantee it stays that way, in fact we expect this card to go up in value over time.
A PSA 10 if you can find one, normally sells in the $300 range.
NUMBER 3 we’ve got a lot of motion in a card this is his 2021 Topps SP and it is one of the best images we’ve seen of Otani he’s in the batting cage he’s about to make uh contact with the ball the ball looks like it’s going to go about 450 feet, it’s just perfect. If this were an SSP this might be like a $1 thousand card, it’s such a great image but in this particular case I think we lucked out that it’s an SP. There are more options out there, normally, there’s quite a few sitting on eBay. You can usually find raw cards under a hundred bucks at the time of this article. It is one of the best if not the best image on an Ohtani card, so we expect this card to appreciate quickly.
NUMBER 2 is our last Gold Cup of the countdown and we’re going back to Heritage. This 2019 Topps Heritage Action Variation Card is awesome, this is just an incredible looking card. I couldn’t believe this was still under a hundred bucks in fact before we published this article, I was looking to see if there was one we could snatch up real quick. Heritage puts the giant Gold Cup trophy on there which is extra cool. So the trophy, the hitting follow through it looks Otani is watching a towering blast it. 2019 is a second-year card that can’t be beat. The PSA 10 of this card are currently in the $500.00 range.
For our NUMBER 1 Shohei Ohtani card under $100 is we’re going back to Stadium Club. This is Stadium Club Chrome from 2020 and this is our favorite picture of Shohei Otani on a baseball card, it has a perfect spot for an autograph he’s about ready to uncoil on this ball and it looks great even without the auto.
This card is just absolute perfection I had hoped that there would be a parallel that we could get for under a 100 bucks but there is not. Even the refractor which looks great is up over 200 at this point. This isn’t like a typical base card where there’s tens 20 30,000 of these cards. Stadium Club Chrome in 2020 was their first year and there just there aren’t that many of this card. This is an awesome addition to any collection, and a card that is sure to increase in value in our opinion.
So there you have it, these are our top 10 Shohei Otani baseball cards 11 you can still pick up at the time of this writing on September 20th 2024 for under $100. Let us know if you have any suggestions that we should add to the list and consider subscribing to our up date list if this is the type of content you find beneficial.
If you enjoyed this article then we suggest you check out the article below, were we talk about the Top high end Ohtani investment grade cards.
2025 The Year of Shohei Ohtani “The Greatest Baseball Player of All Time?”
