Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young joined the GBag Nation fresh off his scouting trip to Japan. Young spoke about the trip, his contract extension, Nathan Eovaldi's future, Kumar Rocker's MLB debut, fixing the offense in the offseason, and much more.
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00:00I'm glad we don't have to ask you awkward questions about your contract future anymore,
00:18Chris.
00:19Congrats on that.
00:20I appreciate it, guys.
00:22I'm happy that it's behind us.
00:25I'm looking forward to the future here and really excited for what we have to build upon.
00:32Obviously this year has not gone the way we wanted.
00:35That said, I'm very confident and extremely motivated to get back to what I believe this
00:40team can be, this organization should be, and most importantly, what our fans deserve.
00:45There's a lot of work ahead.
00:46I want to see a strong finish here these last couple weeks, and then we'll turn the page
00:50on 2024 and regroup and be ready for 2025.
00:54I do have one uncomfortable question.
00:56Is this possibly Nathan Ivaldi's last home start as a member of the Rangers?
01:03Certainly that possibility exists, and I can't deny that.
01:06He's not under contract for next year.
01:09That said, we love the player, and I think we would be very interested in finding a way
01:13to get Nate back, but I understand that things happen, and so I don't take for granted that
01:19it could be his last start.
01:21I hope it's not, but the reality is that he is not under contract for next year, and we'll
01:28see how that plays out, but I would love certainly to have him back.
01:33We got to chat with Kamar Rocker earlier, and that was awesome.
01:36It was great seeing him out there making his debut.
01:38I know you were in Japan, but overall, your thoughts on him and DeGrom being back in and
01:44what the organization felt about their starts?
01:47Yeah, I did get to see Kamar on Thursday before flying over to Japan on Friday.
01:51I had to miss Jacob's start, but I was actually able to watch it on the flight, which was
01:55amazing, and so it was just so fun seeing both those guys pitch back-to-back nights.
02:00They're both so talented, and especially for Kamar to see his debut, it was really special.
02:06The first two guys get on base, he has second and third no outs, and he navigates it, gets
02:10out of it without giving up a run, and really just he pitched so well, and it was so exciting
02:16to see.
02:17I think it's great for his future, for the future of the Rangers, and then obviously
02:20to follow that up the next night with Jacob DeGrom, who has been the best pitcher in the
02:25world at certain times when he's healthy, and Jacob looked like he hadn't skipped a
02:29beat.
02:30I know he wasn't perfectly satisfied with his performance, but I was so happy for Jacob
02:34to be back out there and really what it means to our fans and our 2025 season, so I thought
02:40to some degree it was a glimpse of next year.
02:42I'm excited for both those players, and looking forward to watching their next couple of starts
02:47here before the season winds down.
02:49Jack Leiter to the bullpen, I saw Bochy talking about that, can you just give us the thinking
02:55in putting Leiter more in the bullpen perhaps for the rest of the season?
03:00Well obviously we'd love to have Jack in the rotation.
03:02We have a surplus of starters right now, and so the easiest thing to do was to slide Jack
03:06to the pen to piggyback Max, as Max came back off the IL, and as it turns out, the
03:13two of them split the game, and it was fun seeing both those guys back out there and
03:17pitching well.
03:18So really happy with Jack's performance, I thought he pitched great, handled the change
03:24in role very, very well, and ultimately I think that'll serve him well too moving forward,
03:29understanding that he's versatile and capable of doing different things, but we see Jack
03:35as a starting pitcher long term, and not something that we want to get used to, but that said,
03:39where we are right now, that's what we have to do.