Ohtani Close to Griffey as Most PSA Graded Baseball Player Ever
No one could argue that Ken Griffey Jr. is one of the most collected baseball players in the hobby, even 15 years after he last stepped up to a MLB plate. Currently, his PSA graded cards sit at 764,562. That's everything, every grade and every card.
Coming up as No. 2 (and closing in on Griffey) on the list of PSA graded baseball cards is the reigning NL MVP and international superstar Shohei Ohtani. He's currently about 140,000 behind Griffey at 626,082. Now while that seems like a large gap, it isn't when you consider just how many Ohtani cards were submitted to PSA over the off-season. According to PSA and a report by Larry Holder of The Athletic, between November 2024 and February 2025, PSA received and graded a whopping 87,300 cards. More than 30,000 more than the runner up, Paul Skenes, who had just over 50,000 cards submitted.
It's worth noting that three of the top 20 most graded baseball players this offseason are Japanese born MLB players, and that's surely to get a boost as Japan hosted the Dodgers and Cubs for what was technically Opening Day on the morning of Tuesday, March 18.
Related: Shohei Ohtani Tokyo Series 1/1 Card Pulled
This run by Shohei for the top spot isn't going to stop anytime soon. He just won a World Series AND the Most Valuable Player award as a DH alone. After an injury took him off the mound for all of 2024 it's been reported that the Dodgers will ease him back into pitching. And when he does that will just add to the aura that is the unicorn of Shohei Ohtani.
With the added pitching skill, he's surely to have more team success as a member of the Dodgers. While the Angels tried to put together a winning team with him and Trout, injuries and bad performances plagued the Halos for much of his tenure. It's crazy to think, and our kids and their kids will be amazed at the fact that the Los Angeles Angels never made the playoffs with arguably the best players in baseball in Trout and Ohtani on their roster.
But now that he's on the Dodgers, he'll surely see more postseason success as he builds upon his legacy for the rest of his remaining nine years of the massive contract he signed prior to the 2024 MLB season.
After graduating from the University of North Dakota in 2008, Cole worked as an advertising copywriter until shifting to print journalism a few years later. Managing three weekly newspapers in the Dakotas, Cole won numerous awards from the North Dakota Newspaper Association including Best of the Dakotas and, their top award, General Excellence. He returned to collecting in 2021 and has since combined his passion for writing with his love of cards. Cole also writes for the Sports Cards Nonsense newsletter and has made guest appearances on multiple sports card collecting podcasts including Sports Cards Nonsense, and the Eephus Baseball Cards Podcast. IG: coleryan411 X: @colebenz