{"id":333401,"date":"2025-12-06T06:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T06:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333401\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T06:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T06:38:07","slug":"latest-on-mackenzie-gore-trade-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333401\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On MacKenzie Gore Trade Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore<\/a> is one of the biggest names to watch as the Winter Meetings approach. The All-Star southpaw is Washington\u2019s biggest trade chip, and they\u2019re unsurprisingly getting plenty of calls.<\/p>\n

Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a> write that the Nationals have heard from upwards of 15 teams with interest. Buster Olney of ESPN<\/a> relays that executives from multiple front offices expect a Gore trade to come together within the coming days. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel<\/a> wrote earlier this week that the Nats had a high asking price \u2014 as one would expect for a mid-rotation starter who comes with two affordable seasons of club control.<\/p>\n

Gore, who turns 27 in February, took the ball 30 times this year and posted a 4.17 earned run average. That\u2019s not all that impressive in aggregate, but he flashed the talent that once made him a third overall pick. Gore\u2019s first half was excellent: 110 1\/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball with a 30.4% strikeout rate. Things unraveled down the stretch. He was tagged for a 6.75 ERA in 11 starts after the All-Star Break. His strikeout percentage plummeted by 10 points as the whiff rates on his curveball and slider dropped. Gore struggled to throw strikes and twice landed on the injured list. He missed the first couple weeks of September with shoulder inflammation, then was scratched from his final start because of an ankle impingement.<\/p>\n

The ankle is unlikely to be a concern moving forward. The shoulder could raise a little more alarm, but his velocity wasn\u2019t much affected when he returned. His fastball averaged 94.8 MPH in September, only marginally below its 95.3 MPH mark for the season. Gore\u2019s scattershot command and start-to-start inconsistency are the bigger questions. There\u2019s nevertheless going to be ample interest in a lefty with plus stuff who pitched like a #2 starter for the first three months of the season.<\/p>\n

Gore ranked as MLBTR\u2019s top trade candidate<\/a> entering the offseason. That reflected both his value and the likelihood that he\u2019d be on the move. The Nationals don\u2019t appear close to coming out of their rebuild. They fired GM Mike Rizzo midseason and are starting fresh with president of baseball operations Paul Toboni. Gore is two seasons away from free agency. The Nats almost certainly won\u2019t be competitive next season and face an uphill battle to making the playoffs in 2027, making it difficult to envision Gore remaining in D.C. beyond next year\u2019s deadline at the latest.<\/p>\n

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects<\/a> Gore for a $4.7MM salary in his penultimate arbitration year. That\u2019s unlikely to climb beyond $8-10MM in 2027. An acquiring team would be getting two years of a mid-rotation arm for a total around $12-15MM. That\u2019s a bargain even if Gore never reaches another level, but there are surely clubs that believe they can coax a better full season than he has shown so far.<\/p>\n

The Padres reportedly made the strongest push to bring Gore back at last summer\u2019s deadline. They still need controllable starting pitching, though a deal could be difficult to manage after they moved top prospect\u00a0Leo De Vries<\/a> to the A\u2019s for\u00a0Mason Miller<\/a> instead. The Cubs were also linked to Gore at the deadline and remain on the hunt for a high-end starter.<\/p>\n

The Giants, Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Rangers could all pursue a top arm in trade. The rotation isn\u2019t necessarily a need for the Mariners, but they\u2019re in win-now mode and have the kind of farm system that could allow them to jump in on any available trade candidate. The Orioles and Mets are also chasing rotation upside, but a huge trade with the Nationals could be complicated. The O\u2019s and Nats have long had a contentious relationship related to their decade-plus long dispute over TV rights, while the Mets face the challenge of pulling off a trade within the division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore is one of the biggest names to watch as the Winter Meetings approach. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[7841,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-333401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mackenzie-gore","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}