We’re seeing a bit of an arms race in the AL East. Sonny Gray is lining up behind Garrett Crochet in Boston, and the Blue Jays have inked both Dylan Cease and KBO MVP Cody Ponce. Meanwhile, three-fifths of the nominal Yankee starting rotation will start the year on the IL, with Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt both still recovering from Tommy John surgery and Carlos Rodón expected to miss time in April after having bone chips removed.
A few hundred miles south, the Washington Nationals are in the wilderness. The key pieces from the Juan Soto trade, MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams, have turned into representative MLB players, and James Wood had an excellent half season in 2025. Beyond that… woof. There’s very little talent behind those three on the big league roster, and the farm system is pretty dreck.
Now for most rebuilding teams that wouldn’t be the end of the world, except that the Nats were supposed to be done rebuilding. The bill for that incredible 2019 was supposed to be paid, the trade for the superstar they were never going to retain was supposed to be the foundation of the next great Nationals team. That foundation is there, with nothing much else, and for Gore specifically, he has just two years of team control left.
The left-hander hasn’t quite been an ace yet, but after two consecutive solid seasons — albeit ones that came in front of pretty terrible defenses — you can start to see the promise that made him such a hot prospect. A 3.74 FIP followed a 3.53 in 2024, and he features some of the best breaking stuff in baseball. Perhaps most critically if he were to move to the AL East, he keeps the ball in the yard.
There are drags, as I said above Gore isn’t an ace. He has a remarkably flat fastball for one that comfortably sits 96, and improving it has to be his biggest priority. MLB hitters can catch up to 96 if there’s no shape to it, and it’s why Gore’s allowed a 132 (!) wRC+ against the four-seam for his career, including an ugly 142 this past season — that’s about as bad as Rodón’s heater in his first two seasons in New York, not exactly what you want to see.
The Yankees do have a history of teaching fastballs, with Cam Schlittler perhaps the ur-example of late. Gore also began experimenting with a cutter in 2025, one that he probably should have thrown more frequently especially as a part of the cutter-slider-sweeper spectrum that we’ve seen grow in popularity. The Yankees are excellent at adding lateral movement to fastballs, so maybe that’s the trick to getting the most out of Washington’s lefty.
The other big advance we would likely see with Gore is playing in front of a decent defense. If you like DRS, the Nationals were the third-worst in baseball last year, and if you prefer OAA, Washington was the second-worst. The Yankees hovered right around average defensively in 2025, and while we all want them to clean up behind their pitchers, this is one of those “you get more out of not being stupid than you get from being smart” deals. Mackenzie Gore has shown flashes in front of a dreadful defense, what strides could he make in front of an average one?
The second year of control does make Gore a little more expensive but it also gives the Yankees more time to work out that fastball. The AL East is already better than it was at the close of the season, while New York has retained Trent Grisham without much else. Getting MacKenzie Gore out of the darkness that’s become the Washington Nationals goes a long way to closing some of those gaps.