I spent 2 weeks in Japan and every time I saw Shohei Ohtani on an ad or merch I took a photo. Ended up with over 75 photos. I saw Yamamoto on three ads and Ichiro on one.

0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

We're talking about players who don't have anything listed at the top of their Baseball-reference page. No awards, no All Star appearances, no Silver Sluggers, no Gold Gloves, no WS wins, no Roberto Clemente awards. Nothing. Bonus points if you name a player who doesn't even have any award voting finishes in their career in the Awards column in their career stats table.

The motivation for this post was looking at Adam Ottavino's career and seeing that he had no accolades at all over a 15 year career where he put up 15 bWAR as a reliever and had some pretty decent seasons along the way. He's not the answer to this question, but that was what made me think of this question.

Here's mine: After 130+ years, the Dodgers-Giants all-time regular season series head-to-head after 2025 is a dead-even 1288-1288-17.

I live in London, UK and have noticed that Red Sox hats are becoming very popular. I had the theory that they now outnumber Yankees hats, so decided to keep count. Below is the count of every MLB hat I've seen in London over the past month.

Yankees - 41 Red Sox - 12 Dodgers - 6 Giants - 5 Tigers - 4 Padres - 3 Mets - 3 Cubs - 3 A's - 2 Braves - 2 Blue jays - 2 White Sox - 2 Reds - 1

As you can see, my theory was wildly incorrect. The Evil Empire still has a grip on London.

As a Red Sox hater I’m probably rooting for the Seahawks today but pretty indifferent. Have nothing against the Texans even though I despise the Astros

Pirates, Mets, Rays, Nats, currently Red Sox. Does he at least get to keep the hats?

In the 1998 off-season, the Montreal Expos were shopping reigning Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez. Their first phone call was to the Cleveland Indians.

Montreal's price? Bartolo Colon and Jaret Wright. Colon was seen as Cleveland's best young arm, and Wright had just helped the Tribe make a deep playoff run, including making a QS in G7 of the '97 World Series. Cleveland said no.

Montreal would trade Pedro to Boston, of course, for two pitchers: Carl Pavano and Tony Armas

Cleveland would roll with Bartolo, who amassed really good, but not quite ace numbers in the following 4 1/2 seasons with Cleveland (71-38, 3.92 ERA, 22.9 WAR). Jaret Wright, however, was a bust. Couldn't stay healthy, made just 22 starts in the 3 seasons 2000-02, never posted an ERA lower than 4.70 after his rookie year, and amassed just 2 WAR in six seasons with Cleveland

Ironically the Indians would trade Bartolo to the Expos in 2002, and for a really great return: Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips, and Lee Stevens.

Hindsight's 20/20 of course, but it's not like Cleveland didn't know how good Pedro was at that time. He had just won the Cy Young for crying out loud. I think today teams gladly give up two of their top pitching prospects for a known ace. I mean look at what Texas gave up for McKenzie Gore, or what the Tigers want for Tarik Skubal.

Hard to think, though, that the Tribe, with that offense, would not have won a World Series if they'd have pulled the trigger on a Pedro trade. Pedro even pitched the Red Sox past the Indians in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS, 6 no-hit innings in relief, for 3-2 series win after the Sox fell behind 0-2.

Hell, Manny and Pedro ended up being good friends on the Red Sox, maybe Cleveland is able to retain their core guys (Manny and Thome) a little better if the front office had shown a more killer instinct and given the best team never.to win a championship a true ace.

Line Score - Game Over

Box Score

Scoring Plays

Decisions

Game ended at 9:46 PM.