Does Shohei Ohtani still owe his manager Dave Roberts a new Porsche?

TOKYO (AP) — Hey Shohei Ohtani, where is the fancy Porsche you hinted at giving your manager Dave Roberts if the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series?

Well, the Dodgers won the World Series against the New York Yankees more than a month ago, so what gives?

Visiting Tokyo on Wednesday and speaking to mostly Japanese reporters, Roberts was reminded that Ohtani gave teammate Joe Kelly a new Porsche when Kelly agreed to hand over his No. 17 to the Japanese superstar after he joined the Dodgers from the Angels.

Subsequently, Ohtani gave Roberts a toy Porsche and then, according to Roberts, hinted the real thing might still be coming.

“Where's my real car?” Roberts recalled asking.

According to Roberts, Ohtani replied: “If we win the World Series, maybe we'll talk about it.”

Well, Roberts suggested he's ready to talk, if it's only in jest.

“So we won the World Series," Roberts said. “I don’t know. Good question.”

Roberts said Ohtani — who has won three MVP awards — can get even better at the plate.

“I think with Shohei there were some parts of his season where he was a little too aggressive swinging,” Roberts said. "And I think there’s still room in there for him to be a little more disciplined at the plate. We can make him potentially even better.”

The Dodgers and Cubs open the MLB season on March 18-19 at the Tokyo Dome. Roberts ruled out Ohtani pitching in that first series.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. I expect him to be in the lineup as a hitter," Roberts said. "But as far as the pitching. He hasn’t pitched in over a year. We have to manage how many innings he has for 2025. If we start him in March he won’t be able to sustain that through October.”

Roberts, who managed Ohtani in 2024 as only a DH, said he'll rely on his star and trainers for guidance in 2025.

“I think it’s just going to be honest conversations about how he’s feeling,” Roberts said. “He's certainly not going to have as many plate appearances as he did this year because he’s going to be a pitcher as well.”

Organizers asked before Roberts' press conference that no questions be asked about Roki Sasaki, the prized Japanese pitcher who is expected to move to MLB next season.

Roberts was born in Okinawa — Japan's southern island chain — to a mother from Okinawa and an American father who served in the United States military. He was headed there on Wednesday to visit family — uncles, aunts, cousins and friends.

He called his mother “my heart” and laughed that he got angry with her at times because he thought she dressed him “like a girl.” He said his father died six years ago.

“He did a great job of raising me,” he said. “I miss him every day.”

Raised in a military family, he said he moved frequently, and this taught him how to deal with people from many cultures.

“Being a young kid and moving every three years to another state, another country, forced me and my sister to adapt,” he said. "We joined teams in the middle of the season, we joined schools in the middle of the school year.

“I do believe that having to move all over the world helped me relate and get along with anybody,” he added. "In my job, there’s people from all over the world.”

Roberts has filmed a television spot for Japanese sponsor Kinoshita Group, an entertainment company. Without giving away much, he said the message in the spot was that “people need each other” and it matters how you treat others if they are to "reach their potential.”

He said of the spot: “I think it's going to make an impact.”

He also delved into his interest in mental health, mentioning how emotions were often suppressed when he was growing up in Japanese culture. He talked about being active in Changing Tides, a Los Angeles-based group that promotes mental health in the Asian American community.

“Emotions in the Japanese culture I grew up in weren't always shared,” he said. “Everything was always supposed to okay. And we didn't talk about how we truly felt.”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attends a press conference on the commercials he appears in Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts smells the bouquet of flowers he received during a press conference on the commercials he appears Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attends a press conference on the commercials he appears Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attends a press conference on the commercials he appears Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attends a press conference on the commercials he appears Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts attends a press conference on the commercials he appears Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

HONG KONG (AP) — Global stocks were mixed Wednesday after overnight political drama in South Korea added to regional uncertainties, though the Kospi in Seoul fell less than 2%.

France’s CAC 40 rose 0.3% in early trading to 7,278.18, as the minority government was facing a no-confidence vote Wednesday in parliament following a divisive budget debate. There appeared to be a strong chance the vote might topple Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s Cabinet.

Germany’s DAX added 0.4% to 20,100.80, while Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 0.2% to 8,343.17.

The future contract for the S&P 500 edged 0.2% higher and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4%.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing possible impeachment after he suddenly declared martial law on Tuesday night, prompting troops to surround the parliament. Yoon accused pro-North Korean forces of plotting to overthrow one of the world’s most vibrant democracies. The martial law declaration was revoked about six hours later.

On Wednesday, South Korea’s main opposition party called for President Yoon to resign immediately or face impeachment.

Yoon's move caused the won to plummet to a two-year low against the U.S. dollar, with losses of up to 2%, the sharpest one-day drop since the market’s seismic reaction to Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory. The won recovered some of those losses on Wednesday. The dollar was trading at 1,412.87 won, down from Tuesday's peak at 1,443.40.

South Korea’s Kospi closed 1.4% lower to 2,464.00. Shares of Samsung Electronics, the country's biggest company, fell 0.9%. Meanwhile, the country’s financial regulator said they were prepared to deploy 10 trillion won ($7.07 billion) into a stock market stabilization fund at any time, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Elsewhere in the region, in a further step toward an outright trade war, China announced Tuesday it was banning exports to the United States of gallium, germanium, antimony, and other key high-tech materials with potential military applications. Beijing took the measure after the U.S. expanded its list of Chinese companies subject to export controls on computer chip-making equipment, software, and high-bandwidth memory chips.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended little changed at 19,742.46, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.4% to 3,364.65.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.1% to 39,276.39. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.4% to 8,462.60.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks tiptoed to more records, tacking a touch more onto what’s already been a stellar year.

The S&P 500 edged up less than 0.1% to 6,049.88, setting an all-time high for the 55th time this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% to 44,705.53, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.4% to 19,480.91, hitting its own record set a day earlier.

Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report showed U.S. employers were advertising slightly more job openings at the end of October than a month earlier. Continued strength there would raise optimism that the economy could remain out of a recession that many investors had earlier worried was inevitable.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.23% from 4.20% from late Monday.

Yields have seesawed since Election Day on worries that Trump’s preferences for lower tax rates and bigger tariffs could spur higher inflation. But traders are still confident the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate again at its next meeting in two weeks. They’re betting on a nearly three-in-four chance of that, according to data from CME Group.

Lower rates can give the economy a lift but also tend to fuel inflation.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 14 cents to $70.08 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 20 cents to $73.82 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 150.65 Japanese yen from 149.59 yen. The euro cost $1.0496, down from $1.0510.

Holiday decorations are shown in front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

FILE - Pedestrians cross Wall Street in New York's Financial District on Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

A person rides a bicycle in front of Tokyo Stock Exchange building Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)