With Gore trade, Toboni further fuels Nats' improving future

It’s the nature of the game that the first order of business for a first-time front office leader is often not fun stuff like signing a signature star to a mammoth contract, but painful stuff like trading away talented players.

So it is for new Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni. He had already made his arrival by announcing the departure of hard-throwing young reliever Jose Ferrer to the Mariners. And on Thursday, the leader of MLB’s youngest front office (Toboni is 35 years old, and new general manager Ani Kilambi is 31) further put his stamp on the Nats’ future by dealing away left-handed staff ace MacKenzie Gore.

When a trade the magnitude of the Gore deal is made, much of the bandwidth devoted to it is from the perspective of the acquiring club, and the Texas Rangers undoubtedly improved what looks to be a very good rotation with Thursday’s swap.

But the Nats’ end of this is not to be ignored, because no team has improved its farm system as much as Washington this winter.

Starting fresh is why the Nationals went with the youngest top executive in MLB after dismissing Mike Rizzo midway through his 17th year as the head of their baseball operations. And Toboni has now dealt two young Major Leaguers, signaling that this squad still has quite a ways to go before it can return to prominence, especially in a division as daunting as the NL East.

But to get one of MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects in exchange for a still-mostly-unproven reliever, as the Nats did in the Ferrer deal (Ferrer has loads of potential but so far has a sub-average ERA+ in 142 1/3 Major League innings), is a pretty good score in this prospect-hoarding industry.

Nationals catching acquisition Harry Ford (ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 42 overall prospect) is one of only four players on that Top 100 to be dealt this winter. The others were moved in deals involving more established big leaguers. Infielder/outfielder Jett Williams (No. 30) went from the Mets to the Brewers in the Freddy Peralta deal, outfielder Owen Caissie (No. 47) from the Cubs to the Marlins in the Edward Cabrera swap and outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia (No. 85) from the Red Sox to the Pirates in a trade for starter Johan Oviedo.

None of this is to suggest the Nats definitively aced the trade for Ford. He’ll have to answer questions about his defense and power. But if you have a chance to potentially shore up a position as pivotal as the catching spot for the long term at the expense of the late-season closer from a 96-loss team, it’s a chance worth taking.

Gore didn’t bring the Nats back any Top 100 guys, but he did land them an intriguing package of players despite his arguably complicated trade value.

See, while Gore showed genuine No. 1 starter potential in 2025 -- the kind of potential that once made him the No. 3 overall selection (by the Padres) in the 2017 Draft -- he still hasn’t put it all together quite yet. Last season, he was in early NL Cy Young conversation with a 3.02 ERA and 30.5% strikeout rate at the All-Star break. But in only 15 2/3 innings in a stretch from late July to early August, he surrendered 23 runs, marring his overall season totals (4.17 ERA, 98 ERA+). He also missed some time with left shoulder inflammation, and his second year of attached club control is tied to the league’s looming labor talks.

Given the dearth of quality starting pitchers who can take the ball 30-plus times (as Gore has each of the past two seasons), it is fair to quibble with the Nats not getting a Top 100 prospect in return for him.

But it’s also fair of a Washington team in need of an organizational overhaul to prioritize a depth package vs. one rooted around any one blue-chipper.

In exchange for Gore, the Nats received shortstop Gavin Fien (the No. 12 overall pick in last year’s Draft), right-hander Alejandro Rosario, infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald, outfielder Yeremy Cabrera and first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz. They all rank among the top 24 prospects in Washington’s system.

Of that group, the 23-year-old Ortiz is the closest to the big leagues. The rest are very much long-term plays. And, obviously, the Nats’ plans right now are very much rooted in the long term.

In MLB Pipeline’s most recent farm system rankings, released last August after the Trade Deadline, the Nats ranked 23rd out of 30 teams. It will be interesting to see where our aficionados peg them after the dust settles this winter. I can guarantee it will be a lot higher than 23rd.

There is some irony in Gore ushering in a new era for the Nationals with his arrival in the August 2022 trade that sent Juan Soto to the Padres and now ushering in another new era with his departure in this deal. Unfortunately, the first of those eras resulted in the Nats never winning more than 71 games. That’s how Toboni got this job.

And with this trade, his work is definitively underway. Let the Paul Toboni era begin.