The Rangers made a big January swing for MacKenzie Gore, betting on a left-handed starter with upside and multiple seasons of control. By the end of the year, the question wasn’t what Texas paid. It was whether Gore delivered enough on the mound to justify the deal.
Texas sent five Top 30 prospects to Washington in the trade: infielder Gavin Fien, first baseman Abimelec Ortiz, infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald, pitcher Alejandro Rosario and outfielder Yeremy Cabrera. The Nationals have already gotten one of those prospects to the Majors, and Ortiz was the one closest anyway, so that part of the return shouldn’t drive the verdict. The better lens is what Gore actually brought to the Rangers’ rotation.
He gave them volume. Gore led the way with 34 starts, and he even took the ball on short rest a couple of times.
He did not, however, give Texas the kind of leap you’d hope for from a pitcher with his pedigree. He finished 8-11 with a 4.58 ERA, striking out 174 and walking 71 in 173 innings.
Those innings, walks and 88 earned runs were all career highs for a single season, and his earned run total has climbed every year.
The underlying numbers weren’t much kinder. Gore’s Statcast profile was a mixed bag: his pitching run value (7, 69th percentile), fastball run value (10, 85th percentile) and offspeed run value (4, 83rd percentile) were in the red, while his breaking run value (-7, 11th percentile) sat in the blue.
But the finer points tell a more sobering story. For a pitcher long viewed as one of the better strikeout arms in the sport, his chase rate (29.9%, 44th percentile), whiff rate (24.9%, 44th percentile) and strikeout rate (23.2%, 55th percentile) were only average to below average.
That’s the part that stands out most, because the drop was coming from a place Gore had previously done better. His chase rate was identical to last season at 29.9%, but a year ago that same number landed in the 80th percentile.
His strikeout rate also fell from 27.2% in the 80th percentile, and the biggest slide was in whiffs. Last year, his whiff rate was 29.7% and sat in the 80th percentile.
This season, it dropped by 5%, even though the chase and strikeout numbers held steadier.
The pitch mix still showed plenty of heat. Gore leaned on his four-seam fastball nearly half the time, and it averaged 95.3 mph, about two miles per hour above the average left-hander. He also threw his curve 24%, his slider 12% and his change-up 10%, with each offering showing velocity gains, most by two miles per hour over the left-handed average.
That makes the whiff drop even more interesting. Did the extra velocity help in one area but cost him in another?
Whatever the answer, the Rangers still need that part of the profile to rebound. Gore’s whiff rate will be the key number to watch in 2027, especially with this being his final season of team control.
After one season, Texas did not get enough back from the trade, particularly if the point was to strengthen a playoff rotation.
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