BREAKING NEWS: MacKenzie Gore has been traded to the Washington Senators Texas Rangers in a return of five players featuring Gavin Fien who was the 12th overall draft pick last year plus Abimelec Ortiz, Devin Fitz-Gerald, Alejandro Rosario and Yeremy Cabrera. Ortiz is on the 40-man roster and would conceivably take Gore’s spot. This was a 5-for-1 trade, but no current Top-100 prospects in this package.
While there is promise here in this trade package for the Nats, they did not acquire Sebastian Walcott who is the Rangers’ top prospect in baseball’s Top-15 currently.
Fien, 18, was the Rangers’ second highest rated prospect in a system ranked as one of the weaker minor league systems in baseball — and now much weaker after this trade. He was extensively scouted by Toboni’s Red Sox staff prior to the draft as the Red Sox were drafting after the Rangers in the 2025 draft.
In high school, Fien was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2024 MLB High School All-Star Game in San Diego where he shared the field with new teammates Eli Willits, Landon Harmon and Miguel Sime Jr. While Fien was drafted as a shortstop, he has played some third base, and he was the starting first baseman on the 18u USA team that won it all in Panama. His 6’3 height would work at any spot in the infield. Per a source, Fien’s agent is John Boggs of JBA Sports. The teenager is a second cousin to former MLB pitcher, Casey Fien.
Baseball America wrote up their trade analysis and in a separate tweet — Carlos Collazo wrote, “I love this for the Rangers. Pretty surprised this is the return.” As we know, trades are best judged in hindsight. Plenty of trades swung the other way as a superstar emerged from a trade. This is how Baseball Trade Value graded it as a “major underpay” for Texas and a “major overpay” for Washington.
Nats’ President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, will be judged by trades, drafts, free agent signings, and anyone he hired for his front office and coaching staff. He already had people wondering about the Jake Bennett trade for Luis Perales. Again, maybe Toboni gets most of these moves right. We will see as the future tells the real story. On the surface, Toboni lost this trade. In real results, time will tell the statistics. Baseball is about quality over quantity. Quality wins games. Quantity often takes up space. Toboni addressed the quantity-quality debate:
“It wasn’t necessarily important to us that we needed a smaller package with really high-end talent, -or- a really big package with less than high-end talent. We were open-minded through it all, and this ultimately was the package that we felt most comfortable with.”
— Toboni said
“Just generally speaking, we see high-end talent in this return, but we also see intriguing depth. For us, I think there are a number of ways the ball can bounce in the future. And we can look up in however many years, and we have three, four, five really good players who have come out of this.”
A few notes on Rosario, he was a top-50 prospect in all of baseball a year ago on both Baseball America (№49) and MLB Pipeline (№50). He blew-out his UCL ligament, and Toboni, said Rosario will be undergoing Tommy John surgery in the next few weeks and should track to return in 2027. Toboni called the Rosario acquisition a “worthwhile bet to make.” Texas drafted Rosario in the fifth-round pick out of the University of Miami in 2023 where he was teammates with Nats minor leaguers Yohandy Morales and Maxwell Romero Jr.
Fitz-Gerald, 20, was Texas’ №8 prospect according to Baseball America. Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote,“Evaluators love Fitz-Gerald.” He hit .302 with seven doubles, six homers, 20 RBI, 28 walks, eight stolen bases, and 33 runs scored in 41 games between the Arizona Complex League and Single-A Hickory in his first professional season in 2025. A switch hitter, Fitz-Gerald hit .274 with all six home runs from the left side of the plate and hit .455 (10-for-22) as a righty. Defensively, he converted all 78 chances at shortstop and third base last season. A fifth-round draft pick from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2024, Fitz-Gerald was the 50th-ranked overall high school prospect and 12th-ranked shortstop in that class according to Perfect Game. In 2021 and 2022, Fitz-Gerald was high school teammates with Roman Anthony who was extensively scouted by Toboni and his staff when with the Red Sox.
Cabrera, 20, was the Rangers №14 prospect according to Baseball America. He ranked in the top-10 among Texas farmhands in stolen bases (2nd, 43), on-base percentage (7th, .364), runs scored (8th, 66) and average (10th, .256) in 2025. In all, Cabrera hit .256 with 12 doubles, three triples, eight home runs, 52 RBI, 52 walks, 43 stolen bases and 66 runs scored in 102 games for Single-A Hickory last season. He was an international free agent from the Dominican Republic, and Cabrera led the Arizona Complex League in home runs (9) during the 2024 season. He finished with a .301 average, 11 doubles, three triples and 39 RBI in 49 games.
Ortiz, 23, was the Rangers’ №18 prospect according to MLBPipeline and was originally signed by the Texas Rangers as an undrafted free agent for $20,000 in 2021 out of a JuCo. The team discovered a vision issue and corrected his eyesight with contact lenses in 2022. Listed at 5-10, 230lb, Ortiz played the corner outfield and first base, although not a tall target as a first baseman. He was second in all of Minor League Baseball with 258 RBI and tied for fourth in MiLB with 77 home runs since the beginning of the 2023 season. He has hit double-digit home runs in each of his five professional seasons, including 34 in 2023 on his way to being named South Atlantic League Most Valuable Player. A native of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, Ortiz led all Rangers farmhands in home runs (25), RBI (89), extra-base hits (53) and runs scored (85) last season. In all, he hit .257 with 25 doubles, three triples, 25 home runs, 89 RBI, 65 walks, four stolen bases and 85 runs scored in 130 games between Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock in 2025 of the PCL.
In a separate move, the Nats reportedly made a move a via waiver claim of right-hander Gus Varland from the Diamondbacks, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. With Ortiz and Gore swapping out 40-man spots, the Nats will have to make another roster move to clear a spot for Varland.
With Gore’s salary set for $5.6 million for 2026, the Nats saved that salary, and at the same time have once again created a big hole in this year’s roster. Gore was clearly the Nats’ №1 starter, and you would think they will find a free agent to fill that spot. Again, you would think. We have to wait and see on that. The payroll is back to $110 million by the way.
What is ironic on the timing is that Toboni just did an interview with the Baseball Isn’t Boring Podcast and said that Gore hadn’t been traded because, “A team hasn’t met [the high bar]” that Toboni had set. Of course that changed quickly. But with trades of other starters like Edward Cabrera and Freddy Peralta, the return seemed to be better in higher valued prospects per the rankings. Time will tell on this trade. This Gore trade feels more like the Shane Baz return.
Gore was originally acquired in a trade at the 2022 deadline with CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana. Now you can make that trade tree even larger with Fien, Ortiz, Fitz-Gerald, Rosario, and Cabrera. That is now NINE active players in the Nats system on the Juan Soto tree.
Reseeding the Nats prospect rankings is underway after adding five new prospects. How quickly things change.
In 2023, Gore made his Nats’ debut. The Nats coaching staff in Washington sure didn’t seem to be connecting well with Gore. Should he have been an ace? Even going back to his draft as the №3 pick in the first round, he was seen by some as the best pitcher in the draft that year. We learned recently that Toboni scouted and talked with Gore when he was in high school in North Carolina.
By the way, statistically speaking, Gore actually pitched to a worse ERA in 2025 than 2024 because of Gore’s second half demise after the All-Star game. His career ERA is a 4.19 with a 4.02 FIP. Most teams want to acquire him because they know he should be an ace. The real crime here is that the Nats didn’t get the most out of Gore, and also kind of wasted an extra year of team-control by not activating him off the IL when he pitched for Triple-A in the 2022 season.
Leading into the All-Star break this year, Gore had a 3.02 ERA. After the All-Star break, he finished the season in his final 11-games with a 6.75. His frustration on the mound was evident. His swing and miss rate dropped, and he seemed to struggle to find a putaway pitch. He wore his frustration on his sleeve. There were those times that his manager never had his back so Gore would take matters in his own hands and argued with the umpires after innings.
Now the most amazing stat about Gore is that the team was horrific during his starts. The team amassed just 10 wins to 20 losses in his 30 starts for the 2025 season which was a pathetic .333 winning percentage. So the question goes, why was the team so bad in Gore starts — even when Gore was so good? The easy answer is the offense wasn’t scoring enough runs in Gore starts. Maybe there is some silver lining here that the team’s .425 winning percentage without him shows there was some team chemistry issue of intangibles that defies rational explanation. The team never had a positive winning percentage for Gore.
“I think we’ve got to be honest with ourselves. The truth is – and I don’t think this is a mystery to the fanbase, the media or anyone – we lost 96 games last year, and to turn it around in one year and make the playoffs … not to say it can’t be done, but it’s a challenge.”
— Toboni said
“What we want to do is make sure we build this really strong foundation, so when we do start to push chips in, we can win for an extended period of time. That fits with that strategy for us. Our hope is that we can hopefully achieve our potential, whatever that is, this year. And then hopefully beyond this year win for years to come.”
After the Gore trade, FanGraphs has lowered the Nats to a .450 winning % and a 73-89 record. Who starts for the Nats on Opening Day? This an evolving story, and we will have more coming as news is available.
