Chris Young, the head of baseball operations for the Texas Rangers, called Bruce Bochy on Thursday with news that stunned the new manager. "Jacob wants to come with us," Young said.
Bochy's response: "Are you kidding me?"
Bochy knew the Rangers were going to be aggressive in their negotiations with Jacob deGrom, and he had been impressed by the pitcher in a Zoom meeting with deGrom and his wife, Stacey Harris, in the days before Thanksgiving. But Bochy had assumed that the process would play out for days and perhaps weeks to come as deGrom considered the possibility of leaving the New York Mets, the organization that had drafted him in 2010.