The Los Angeles Dodgers preemptively reserved a No. 17 jersey for Shohei Ohtani in early December by asking reliever Joe Kelly if he’d give up the uniform for his potential new teammate. Days later, the Dodgers inked the reigning AL MVP to a record-breaking 10-year, $700 million contract.

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone revealed Thursday that the Bronx Bombers may have taken a page from Los Angeles’ book in their pursuit of free-agent Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. It sounds like New York has taken things a step further.

The Yankees met with Yamamoto for the first time last week in Los Angeles, and got together with the 25-year-old again earlier this week in Manhattan.

Boone said that the team gave him his own jersey during the meeting and there was a special video message from a certain former World Series MVP as well.