Shohei Ohtani closes in on Ken Griffey Jr. as the player with most PSA graded baseball cards

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Shohei Ohtani’s popularity within the sports card hobby isn’t slowing down as a nears a milestone currently held by the king of ’90s baseball cards.

Ohtani ranks No. 2 only behind Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. for the most baseball cards graded by industry leader PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) and led all players with the most cards submitted for grading during the MLB offseason (from November 2024 to February 2025).

The reigning NL MVP had 87,300 cards graded during that span by PSA, which grades more than three quarters of all cards submitted in the U.S. PSA graded more than three times as many Ohtani cards than Griffey Jr. cards during the offseason.

Below is PSA’s top 20 MLB players in the MLB offseason for graded cards:

  1. Shohei Ohtani: 87,300 cards graded
  2. Paul Skenes: 50,600
  3. Elly De La Cruz: 30,600
  4. Aaron Judge: 21,500
  5. Jackson Holliday: 20,400
  6. Jackson Merrill: 17,800
  7. Jackson Chourio: 16,600
  8. Bobby Witt Jr.: 15,500
  9. Yoshinobu Yamamoto: 12,200
  10. Jasson Dominguez: 10,700
  11. Wyatt Langford: 9,700
  12. Juan Soto: 7,600
  13. Gunnar Henderson: 7,600
  14. Junior Caminero: 7,000
  15. Mike Trout: 6,900
  16. Freddie Freeman: 5,200
  17. Ronald Acuna Jr.: 5,000
  18. Bryce Harper: 5,000
  19. Julio Rodriguez: 4,900
  20. Shota Imanaga: 4,800

There are a few interesting notable offseason PSA tie-ins to this week’s Japan Series between the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs to kick off the 2025 season. Four of the top 21 players in PSA submissions this offseason were from Japan: Ohtani (first), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (ninth), Shota Imanaga (20th), Roki Sasaki (21st). Graded cards submissions for the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman cards saw a 220 percent increase from November to January following his MVP performance during Los Angeles’ 2024 World Series title.

Ohtani ranks sixth all-time in PSA graded cards (626,082 as of Monday) across all categories, while Griffey sits fourth (764,562). LeBron James (684,498) is nestled in fifth between Griffey and Ohtani on the all-time list. Here’s a look at the top 10 all-time list (sports and non-sports), via Gem Rate:

  1. Charizard: 1,719,950
  2. Michael Jordan: 1,633,076
  3. Pikachu: 1,334,076
  4. Ken Griffey Jr.: 764,562
  5. LeBron James: 684,498
  6. Shohei Ohtani: 626,082
  7. Kobe Bryant: 617,065
  8. Victor Wembanyama: 489,222
  9. Mew: 422,335
  10. Derek Jeter: 402,808

Griffey has a total of 14,458 different cards that have been graded, according to Gemrate, with the largest percentage of course coming from his iconic 1989 Upper Deck rookie card, which has been graded more than 118,000 — almost 4,300 of which have earned a gem-mint 10 grade. Second on Griffey’s list is his 1989 Topps Traded card, which has been graded almost 89,000 times by PSA.

Ohtani, meanwhile, already has 14,165 different cards graded by PSA, with much more parity among his primary rookie cards. His most graded card is his 2018 Bowman base card, which has been graded just over 30,000 times with almost 13,000 PSA 10s. His second most graded card is his 2018 Topps Update base card (almost 25,000). He has seven different rookie cards graded 10,000 times or more.

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(Top photo: Masterpress/Getty Images)

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