This series of threads is all about counter play. I will update the first post to always have the most relevant information of the entire thread, so please share what you know 
I’ve been fighting a lot of claws and the range of that claw is too high for stubby Mika. Claw is also way faster and for some reason seems that his throw range is slightly better than grappeling Mika!
I can’t get close enough for a throw and getting in is a headache. Tips?
Stay patient. You only need one opening to potentially take the round, so don’t go nuts trying to get in. That will just get you killed against good Vegas. Walk and block and figure out your opponent’s poking rhythm and patterns. Once you’ve worked that out, then you can mix up max-range cr.HP, charged st.HK, and well-timed jumps as your approaches. Vega doesn’t have a universal AA so you can jump in on him more easily than you can against other characters. Just don’t do it predictably. Jump in anticipation of a poke. If you can get Vega to focus on trying to AA, then you that opens up cr.HP, dash forward, and charged st.HK as approaches. Again, mix up the timing and options you approach with.
Once you do finally get in, focus on conditioning Vega to block low first. A lot of Vega players will try to walk out of your pressure as they know their walkspeed is fast enough to avoid most of Mika’s tick-throw strings. Once you condition Vega to start crouch-blocking at least half of the time, you can start doing throw/frame trap mixups.