Shohei Ohtani Announced As MLB The Show 22 Cover Athlete
It is safe to say the Shohei Ohtani is officially the face of baseball worldwide.
Earlier this week, Ohtani was announced as the cover athlete for MLB The Show 22 and there was really no debate on who else it was going to be. In the 2021 season, the two-way star hit 46 homeruns and posted a 3.18 ERA over 130.1 innings pitched in his first ever MVP season. This resulted in a WAR of 4.9 cementing himself as one of baseball’s best players and an international star.
The Show series continues to increase in popularity, especially with Xbox players being able to play the series for the first time. This year also brings the historic baseball video game to the Switch for the first time allowing for Nintendo gamers to get in on the action. MLB The Show 21 became the fastest selling addition in the series with it being the second-best selling game of 2021 halfway through the year.
This is great news for growing and gaining more interest in the game of baseball. Shohei Ohtani being on the cover of the 2022 rendition will hopefully result in similar, or even better results.
The closest that a Cleveland player has ever come to being named cover athlete of The Show was Yasiel Puig when he was a member of the Dodgers in 2015. Puig was a member of the Cleveland organization on the back half of 2019 hitting .297 over 49 games. The only likely candidate for this honor on the current roster would undoubtedly be yearly MVP candidate Jose Ramirez. But even Ramirez cannot compete with the popularity of Shohei Ohtani.
A trailer for the game has not been released yet ahead of its April 5th release date, but the announcement of a cover athlete is welcome baseball news while the players and owners are still in labor negotiations.
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