When I get asked which rookie cards of a specific player to pick up — a frequent occurrence — the answer is almost exclusively officially licensed cards - the Topps and Bowmans of the world. The main exception to that rule for me are Rated Rookie cards.
Rated Rookies were first introduced in the 1984 Donruss Baseball product. Bill Madden from the New York Daily News was the one who designated the various rookies in the set as a Rated Rookie. He unfortunately missed on Darryl Strawberry and Don Mattingly. The Rated Rookie logo as we know and love today was not in the original release - it was more of a banner design in 1984. We first saw the Rated Rookie logo that we know and love today in the 1985 Donruss release - the slanted text in the classic blue color.
It’s no secret among my hobby friends that since the beginning of last off-season, I started looking to regularly acquire Shohei Ohtani cards. Of all the young modern players, I came to the realization that he was the only one who had the potential to be more than a generational player. He has the potential to be an historic player.
I already owned some Ohtani Rated Rookie cards just from regular collecting over the years, but when I took the dive into personally collecting Ohtani, I was a bit stunned with how many different Rated Rookie cards he has. I thought it would be fun and informative to take a look at all of these, especially since I enjoy Rated Rookie cards and Ohtani is one of the players I am asked regularly about which of his cards to collect. And he might just be the hottest player to collect in baseball at the moment.
2018 Panini Donruss Baseball
The first product of Ohtani’s rookie year did NOT have a Rated Rookie card. There were various insert sets that he was included in (with no RC designation) and quite a few different autographed cards, including one given the Rated Prospect designation. The main reason behind this lack of Ohtani Rated Rookies in this product was most likely because it was released prior to the start of the 2018 MLB season and thus he had yet to play any MLB games.
I came to the realization that he was the only one who had the potential to be more than a generational player. He has the potential to be an historic player.
But wait! A week after the hobby configuration went live, Panini announced a wrapper redemption program. If you sent in 24 donruss baseball pack wrappers to Panini, they would send you back a Rated Rookie Wrapper Redemption pack. They began shipping those out in June 2018 and each pack had three Rated Rookie cards for players which did not have them in the original release - Gleyber Torres, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Shohei Ohtani. There was a base and a name variation for each player. In Ohtani’s case, the name variation was displayed in Japanese text.
The base version is card number 281 and he will be near full extension in his pitching motion and wearing his gray Angels uniform.
The Japanese text variation is also card number 281 and he will be towards the beginning of his pitching windup and wearing his white Angels uniform.
2018 Panini Donruss Optic Baseball
Released in July 2018, this was the first packed out opportunity for hunting Shohei Ohtani Rated Rookie cards. There are 4 different base Rated Rookie cards and 2 autographed Rated Rookie cards, all of the shiny Optic variety.
The base Rated Rookie is card number 56 and is Ohtani in the batter’s box in his red Angels uniform.
The variation of that card, also card number 56, is Ohtani running the bases in his red Angels uniform.
Another variation is card number 176 which is Ohtani pitching in his red Angels uniform. This card does not have a direct base card using the same card number.
The fourth base Rated Rookie is part of the 1984 Retro Rated Rookies subset which is a throwback to the original 1984 Donruss Rated Rookies. This is the banner version of the Rated Rookie and not the logo we have seen since year 2 to present. Ohtani will be at the beginning of his pitching wind up and in his red Angels uniform.
The autographed Rated Rookie is card number RRS-SO and the photo is very similar to the base Optic Rated Rookie card number 56. Ohtani is at bat in his red Angels uniform, but he is more in his waiting stance rather than starting his leg kick like he is in card number 56. The auto is on-card as well, which is very nice.
The other autographed Rated Rookie card is using the 1984 Retro Rated Rookie throwback design. Just like the other Rated Rookie auto, the photo is somewhat different from the base Retro Rated Rookie. Ohtani is mid-windup and in his red Angels uniform. The auto is also on-card here.
2018 Panini Chronicles Baseball
The Chronicles product is really a product of many products. There are usually 15 to 20 different Panini brands accumulated into a single product. Typically these products don’t exist in their own standalone products, but Donruss Rated Rookies and Donruss Optic Rated Rookies got their own special inclusion into the 2018 Chronicles release. While I really like the idea that we have yet another opportunity to collect Ohtani Rated Rookie cards, it just makes it all that much more confusing. There is one base card from each set and no autographed versions.
The Donruss Rated Rookie base is card number 272 and Ohtani is just completing his swing on what looks like a hit, probably a home run knowing Ohtani, in his white Angels uniform.
The Donruss Optic Rated Rookie base is card number 180 and Ohtani is near the top of his pitching wind-up in his gray Angels uniform.
Any More?
That gives us 10 different Rated Rookie cards in total. Well, actually, there is another sneaky one that was part of the 2018 Black Friday promotional packs. In the Multi-sport packs, which were distributed via Local Card Shops as a bonus for buying sealed Panini products on Black Friday, you could get a Shohei Ohtani card. The card number is SO and features Ohtani ripping open a white Angels jersey superman style to reveal a gray shirt with a large Rated Rookie logo on it.
In total, we have 10 different Rated Rookie cards with an asterisk for the Black Friday version for Shohei Ohtani. Most players have at most 2 Rated Rookie cards, sometimes 3 if they get an autographed version. I doubt there is any other player that comes close to the 10* that Ohtani has. Let me know if you think that one should count, or if there are any others I might have missed.
Final Thoughts
My personal favorites are the Donruss Wrapper Redemption Japanese text variation because I am a sucker for the artistic nature of Japanese and Chinese text, the regular Rated Rookie autographed card because that is my favorite image of all of them, and generally the Optic cards because of the shiny factor. However, I will admit that the base Optic variation with Ohtani running the bases is my least favorite. It has nothing to do with Ohtani and everything to do with using players running the bases in photos for baseball cards. With very few exceptions (Rickey Henderson and Billy Hamilton types), baseball card manufacturers, please stop using these photos for your baseball cards.
As I mentioned at the top, Shohei Ohtani is one of if not the hottest current players in baseball and baseball card collecting. Couple that with the strong Rated Rookie branding and the plethora of options with that logo, and you can see why it’s important to be aware of all the different options you can choose from.