It had been a bit of a quiet offseason for the 2023 World Series Champions. Up until Thursday, the only move of real note that the Rangers had made this winter was shipping the contract of Marcus Semien out of town for the contract of Brandon Nimmo.
However, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Texas suddenly gave their fans a reason to get excited.
MacKenzie Gore is a bit of a complex figure in the world of baseball evaluation, yet there’s no denying that the former top prospect has talent to spare. Gore’s 2025 campaign fell off in a huge way in the year’s second-half, but the 26-year-old left-hander did make 30 starts and finish with a promising 27.2% strikeout rate. That also translated to a 3.74 FIP over 159.2 innings of work.
However, when Gore wasn’t striking batters out, he was getting hit hard, as he’d wind up with a 14th percentile opponent barrel rate (10.6%) and a 20th percentile opponent hard hit rate (44.1%).
MacKenzie Gore Trade Details
However, for all of Gore’s surface faults, the Rangers clearly value the southpaw. In a way, it’s a very similar situation to the Blue Jays giving Dylan Cease over $200 million. It’s about what’s under the hood.
In return for Gore, that Nationals will receive a haul of prospects from Texas. On their way to the nation’s capital are 3B Gavin Fien, SS Devin Fitz-Gerald, RHP Alejandro Rosario, 1B Abimelec Ortiz and and OF Yeremy Cabrera.
Fien was the Rangers’ first-round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, going 12th-overall out of high school. MLB Pipeline is releasing their updated Top 100 prospects list in less than 24 hours — Baseball America released their’s earlier this week — but as of writing, Fien was Texas’ No. 2 prospect.
Rosario was the team’s No. 6 prospect, but recently underwent Tommy John surgery, while Fitz-Gerald was the Rangers’ No. 12 prospect. The infielder had a very good first season of professional ball in 2025, and he was considered a prospect on the rise by some scouts heading into 2026.
