What Would It Cost for the Nationals to Extend MacKenzie Gore?

Washington's young lefty is set to hit free agency after 2027.

What Would It Cost for the Nationals to Extend MacKenzie Gore?

MacKenzie Gore has come out hot to start the spring, striking out 10 without giving up a run across his first 8.1 innings (two starts). He’s in line to make his first Opening Day start when the Nationals take on the Phillies on March 28th, and Washington hopes he can make the kind of leap that ensures he’ll be taking the ball on Day 1 for the foreseeable future.

The problem is that Gore is already enter Year 4 of his contract, and set to be a free agent after the 2027 season.

So right now, he’s looking at making at being the Opening Starter for three years, at most.

The Nationals probably want to change that.

We’ve talked about Gore as an extension candidate before. He’s one of the earliest free-agents-to-be amongst the Nationals group of young core. He joins Luis Garcia and Josiah Gray as the trio of “rebuild players” that will be first to hit the open market. (Click here for a breakdown of what Garcia’s own potential extension could look like).

We’ve also talked about the challenges the Nationals will likely face in locking him down due to the fact he’s a Scott Boras client (along with Dylan Crews and James Wood, who’s extension cases we looked at here).

But what would it take to lock Gore down?

As a starting point, let’s look relevant extensions that pitchers have signed since 2022 (age at time of signing in parentheses):

2024:

• Tyler Glasnow (30) signed for 5 years/$136 million with the Dodgers

• Logan Webb (26) signed for 5 years/$90 million with the Giants

• Mitch Keller (27) signed for 5 years/$77 million with the Pirates

• Pablo Lopez (27) signed for 4 years/$77 million with the Twins

• Brayan Bello (24) for 6 years/$55 million with the Red Sox

2023:

• Luis Castillo (30) signed for 5 years/$108 million with the Mariners

• Joe Musgrove (29) signed for 5 years/$100 million with the Padres

• Spencer Strider (24) signed 6 years/$75 million with the Braves

• Christian Javier (25) for 5 years/$64 million with the Astros

• Hunter Greene (23) signed for 6 years/$53 million with the Reds

2022:

• Jose Berrios (27) signed for 7 years/$131 million with the Blue Jays

• Lance McCullers (28) signed for 5 years/$85 million with the Astros

• Kyle Freeland (28) signed for 5 years/$64 million wit the Rockies

• Sandy Alcantara (26) signed 5 years/$56 million with the Marlins

• Antonio Senzatela (26) signed for 5 years/$50 million with the Rockies

So the easy answer here would be to offer Gore something between $50-$75 million over the course of five to six years, based on the going rate for players at similar career stages with roughly similar results under their belts.

But Gore has not only shown he can likely take a step forward, but there’s also the Boras factor.

That means the same rules will apply as when we looked at extensions for Wood and Crews: it’s not “what are the best comps?” It’s “how close are you willing to get to what he would likely get on the open market?”

For that reason, the deals for Strider, Alcantara and McCullers are probably not all that helpful, other than as a reference point for what won’t be enough.

Instead, we need to turn to the deals for Glasnow and Berrios.

Glasnow and Berrios both had a heftier resume than Gore does at present when they signed their deals, but if the goal of this exercise is to find a number that allows Boras and Gore to mitigate some risk without forfeiting significant major earning power, the two deals feel like roughly the ballpark where an extension would have to sit.

The Nationals surely won’t want to fork over $27 million per season (Glasnow’s AAV) to a player with Gore’s inconsistent track record - it would tie him for the 6th-largest AAV of any pitcher in baseball. But that’s what makes something more like the Berrios deal feel like it could be sensible for both parties.

Gore will likely prefer not to wait until age 33 to be up for a new contract, say it’s a six-year deal that puts him on the market at 32 for a shot at another big contract (in DC or elsewhere). A six-year extension for the $131 million Berrios got puts Gore at a $21.8-million AAV, which the Nationals could shift toward the back end of the contract if they so chose. Perhaps even something closer to the five-year, $100-million deal Joe Musgrove signed would make more sense, as it would secure Gore in Washington through 2029 while still allowing him to enter free agency as a 31-year-old.

It might feel steep for a player with just one sub-4 ERA season under his belt, but Gore will currently be a free agent ahead of his age-29 season, perfectly positioned for a top-end pitching contract if he does continue to take steps toward his ace-like ceiling over the next three seasons.

Particularly for a Boras client, there’s a major cost to pushing that window back by even one or two years, and the truth is the numbers above may not even get it done if Boras thinks he can chase something like the Max Fried or Corbin Burnes deals that were signed this past offseason.

But something in the Musgrove/Berrios/Glasnow world is probably the ballpark the Nationals will have to play in if they want any chance at persuading Gore and his representation to consider foregoing some risk and pushing back the lefty’s free agency.

What say you? Would something in that stratosphere be worth locking up the Nationals’ budding top starter?

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