{"id":134525,"date":"2026-01-23T03:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134525\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:08:12","slug":"will-mackenzie-gore-put-it-all-together-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134525\/","title":{"rendered":"Will MacKenzie Gore put it all together in Texas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yahoo Sports’ Jordan Shusterman reacts to the 5-for-1 trade that sends All-Star pitcher MacKenzie Gore to the Rangers for prospects. For the latest in offseason news and analysis, Check out the \u201cBaseball Bar-B-Cast\u201d podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you listen.<\/p>\n

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Video Transcript<\/p>\n

We have ourselves another big trade involving a starting pitcher.<\/p>\n

It has been a busy winter already with starting pitchers on the move: Sonny Gray, Shane Baz, Edward Cabrera, Freddy Peralta just happened, and now another.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie Gore, the left-hander who has been on the Washington Nationals the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Since arriving in the Juan Soto trade, the 2022 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie Gore has now been traded for the second time in his career.<\/p>\n

And he is going to Texas for a five-player return.<\/p>\n

Let’s talk about MacKenzie Gore.<\/p>\n

Just how good is this guy?<\/p>\n

Uh, this is one of the more confounding pitchers, honestly.<\/p>\n

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To watch over the last handful of years.<\/p>\n

The talent is obvious.<\/p>\n

He has generally stayed healthy, dealt with a few minor injuries.<\/p>\n

Injuries this past year, but he has amassed a pretty sizable workload in a Major League rotation, and the results from a run prevention standpoint have been just okay.<\/p>\n

But the swing-and-miss stuff is there.<\/p>\n

The strikeout rates are fantastic.<\/p>\n

He just posted a career high in that category.<\/p>\n

He does throw very hard for a starter.<\/p>\n

He’s got multiple good breaking balls.<\/p>\n

The changeup has garnered elite swing-and-miss rates, but has also given up some serious damage.<\/p>\n

Because the command has never really been pinpoint, he’s run himself into some trouble.<\/p>\n

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He’s also dealt with a lot of bad luck during his time with the Nationals, in terms of having very bad defenses and catching.<\/p>\n

That have resulted in probably more runs allowed than most pitchers would in his exact situation.<\/p>\n

But the command is not great.<\/p>\n

The walk rate is still high.<\/p>\n

This is a very talented pitcher that helps the Rangers.<\/p>\n

The Rangers, very quietly, maybe the most quiet first in ERA baseball performance of all time.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Texas Rangers had the lowest team ERA in baseball last year.<\/p>\n

Lowest starting pitcher ERA in baseball in 2025.<\/p>\n

It was their offense that let them down and led them to a very mediocre, disappointing season.<\/p>\n

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Now, as for that rotation, How much of that rotation is still there?<\/p>\n

Well, Jacob deGrom, He’s pretty good.<\/p>\n

Nathan Eovaldi, he’s pretty good.<\/p>\n

But those guys are getting up there in age, and do not have the strongest track record of durability.<\/p>\n

Eovaldi, in particular, has been dealing with a lot of injuries.<\/p>\n

DeGrom staying healthy all of last season was tremendous, but you don’t know for sure that you’re gonna be getting 30 starts out of those guys moving forward.<\/p>\n

Patrick Corbin and Tyler Mahle.<\/p>\n

Two other veterans who were big parts of their rotation last year.<\/p>\n

Both reaching free agency.<\/p>\n

Jack Leiter flashes as a rookie, but you don’t really know what you’re getting from him.<\/p>\n

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So if Texas is gonna get back in the mix here in the AL West, I think they, they felt like they needed some more starting pitching.<\/p>\n

And Gore brings that upside for sure.<\/p>\n

Also, you just have to hope that a change of scenery for him coming from Washington, which before this recent regime change, one of the worst pitching development organizations in the sport.<\/p>\n

Uh, indisputably.<\/p>\n

So maybe Gore can unlock, you know, a new level in Texas, uh, a team that clearly has been able to create some, some solid run prevention units in recent years.<\/p>\n

But Gore does have a lot to prove.<\/p>\n

He, he has not yet put it all together.<\/p>\n

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You see it in glimpses.<\/p>\n

Yes, he made the All-Star team last year, but he was terrible after the break.<\/p>\n

Some of that may be injuries, but he’s just been really hot and cold.<\/p>\n

So we will see if he can find some more consistency in Texas.<\/p>\n

Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yahoo Sports’ Jordan Shusterman reacts to the 5-for-1 trade that sends All-Star pitcher MacKenzie Gore to the Rangers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[57480,57483,57479,53310,53311,57328,941,57482,57481,57478,57477,27,29,28,429,57484,57421],"class_list":["post-134525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-edward-cabrera","tag-freddy-peralta","tag-gore","tag-jack-leiter","tag-jacob-degrom","tag-mackenzie-gore","tag-nathan-eovaldi","tag-patrick-corbin","tag-shane-baz","tag-sonny-gray","tag-starting-pitcher","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-rangers","tag-tyler-mahle","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}