After starting his major-league career with a six-year playoff drought, Shohei Ohtani is finally headed to the World Series.
This postseason run, following a regular season in which he became the first player to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases, also has Ohtani’s card market in arguably its best position since his debut in 2018.
Card Ladder’s Shohei Ohtani Index, which tracks 90 of his most important cards, is trending near its highest score ever. Ohtani has also held his position as the fifth-most graded athlete ever at PSA, with more than 523,000 cards.
And while Ohtani’s prices haven’t reached pandemic levels overall — despite a recent record-setting sale — his volume has remained outstanding, with data tool Market Movers tracking more than 56,000 sales over the last 365 days. Of the nearly 29,000 combined sales for Ohtani’s five most popular PSA 10s, around 10,000 have come in the last year.
This surge, meanwhile, has occurred with possibly the most coveted milestone still lingering. For many, a World Series win in the coming days would cap off one of the best individual seasons in MLB history.
But will a championship actually catapult Ohtani’s market more than it already has? Conventional wisdom says it should, but the data says he might have already gotten credit for it.
According to Market Movers, Ohtani’s market saw a boost following his historic 50-50 achievement Sept. 19, with his graded cards tracked by the data tool up 20% collectively over the last 60 days. Those cards have dipped in the month following, however, and are now down 6% collectively over the last 30 days.
Looking at Ohtani’s five most popular PSA 10s over the last year, all five saw price bumps immediately following the 50-50 game, though four have regressed significantly in recent weeks. Among those cards, only the 2018 Topps Update Base PSA 10 has maintained its price increase, while the other four have seen dips ranging from 11% to as much as 26%.
With Ohtani’s market appearing to peak and then dip over the last month, it would take a significant course correction for it to trend up to what many would expect. Important moments can often deliver that change, though championships — which also signal the end to the season — don’t always provide that.
Looking at one Super Bowl winner, Patrick Mahomes’ card market likely didn’t deliver what many expected, at least at first.
Among Mahomes’ most popular rookie cards, his 2017 Optic Base PSA 10 was trending around $224 on Feb. 1, 2020 — the day before he won his first Super Bowl. Within a week, that same card was trending closer to $211.
It wasn’t until Jan. 2021 that it spiked to more than $2,000, though that can largely be attributed to a hobby-wide increase in prices and less to a change in sentiment among collectors.
The most recent NBA Finals might offer a better comparison, with stars such as Jayson Tatum and Luka Dončić both competing for their first titles.
Dončić saw a bump in early June as the Mavericks advanced to the Finals, but immediately saw major regression when Dallas was crushed 4-1 in the series. After hitting $309 on May 31, Dončić’s 2018 Prizm Base PSA 10 cratered to $196 by the deciding Game 5 on June 17.
Tatum managed to solidify himself with a title, but, like Dončić, his card market didn’t exactly move the way many expected. Tatum’s most popular card over the last year, his 2017 Prizm Base PSA 10, was trending around $156 for Game 1 on June 6. By Game 5, it had dropped to $135, while other key cards, including his 2017 Hoops Base PSA 10, 2017 Donruss Base PSA 10 and 2017 Optic Base PSA 10, experienced similar shifts.
Despite Tatum’s status as a hobby favorite, it was teammate Jaylen Brown who had his market reshaped following the Celtics' championship, with much of that likely credited to overall hobby sentiment changing for Brown.
Conventional wisdom tells us moments don’t get much better than winning a championship, but hobbyists don’t always think the way casual fans do. At least in recent history, it appears likely collectors consider some superstars good enough and the actual milestones don’t mean as much.
Ohtani has battled to get to this point, and while it’s certainly possible that collectors flock to his cards in the coming weeks if the Dodgers win to drive prices up, there is also a very real possibility his market has already peaked, and the best isn’t yet to come.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.