There seems to be plenty of appealing options available for teams looking to add starting pitching via the trade market this offseason.
Of course, the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal is at the top of the list and would command the biggest haul, but beneath him you have trade candidates such as the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta, the Pirates’ Mitch Keller, the Royals’ Kris Bubic, the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara and Edward Cabrera, and more.
According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, one pitcher who is “definitely” expected by some teams to be traded in the days ahead is Nationals left-handed ace MacKenzie Gore.
It is believed that more than half of the league has at least checked in on Gore, according to Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic (subscription required). And although the Nationals are listening, their asking price for the 26-year-old left-hander is “understandably high,” per ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel.
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“He's really good, so it doesn't surprise me that teams are reaching out on him,” new Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni said during Wednesday’s edition of the Baseball Tonight podcast. “I had a conversation with MacKenzie the other day and I said, ‘Hey, before we even really hop into this, this is going to be a thing. Teams are going to call about you because you're really good. What I'm tasked with -- and what the group here is tasked with -- is we want to hold a high bar, but also we're going to listen because that's part of our job.' That’s exactly what I told MacKenzie.
“I'm really excited about the development prospects for him, too. Assuming he's in a Nats uniform next year, I think we're going to get the best version of MacKenzie that we've seen in his career.”
The 2025 version of Gore was a first-time All-Star who struck out 185 batters over 159 2/3 innings and made at least 30 starts for the second straight year. Gore, who has a 10.1 K/9 rate since the start of 2023, is under club control for two more seasons.