Washington Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni met with media to break down his perspective of CJ Abrams, front office's approach with possible trades
The Washington Nationals have joined the mix of team under the microscope during MLB winter meetings this week with all eyes around the status of pitcher MacKenzie Gore and shortstop CJ Abrams.
Interest around Gore has become a national storyline with reports that over half of the league has inquired about the Nationals’ pitcher and other reports pointing to an expectation that it is a matter of when, not if, new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni pulls the trigger on a move. The former All-Star selection averaged 10.4 strikeouts and finished 5-15 in 2025, but several contenders have circled Gore as a trade candidate in hopes of bolstering the starting pitching rotation, though Toboni cautioned “if we’re going to entertain something for MacKenzie - you said it - we’re going to hold a really high bar.”
“I think it would just be kind of negligent to not entertain it,” Toboni said on Monday. “CJ or otherwise, we’ll have our ears open. And the worst that can happen is we say ‘no’ and we go back to having our regularly scheduled programming and go from there.”
As for Abrams, Toboni was more surprised around the recent increased trade speculation on day one of winter meetings.
“Well first of all, I didn’t see the CJ Abrams stuff until today and so I didn’t think that was a thing,” Toboni said in one of several media appearances on Monday. “I haven’t talked to CJ about this. CJ and I have been talking - I chatted with him live the other day. MacKenzie [Gore] was different because I saw this stuff coming up with MacKenzie and I’m like man, I’m going to call him just because if I put myself in MacKenzie’s shoes, I’m probably wanting to hear if this is real or not or if this is BS. And more than that, man, I said it the other day, one of the most gratifying parts for me is building relationships with staff and players. To me, it’s like I had already talked to MacKenzie, I was just calling again to check in to say by the way, like you’re going to see this and this is how I think through it. If you have any questions, hit me up whenever you want. That’s how I’d approach it with anyone. At the same time, I’m not sure it’s the best thing to set a standard that every single time someone’s name pops up in the media, I’m giving them a call and updating them. Trying to balance those two things but so much of this in my opinion comes down to relationships. If you have great ones, they trust what you’re telling them and want to keep them informed but probably don’t want to overcommunicate too.”
That shouldn't be too much of a surprise with Gore pointing to the more likely piece than Abrams, but it points back to the Nationals continuing to evaluate the market ahead of Blake Butera's first season as manager.
Abrams is coming off a strong season, posting 19 home runs, 35 doubles, 60 RBIs and 31 steals, and enters year two of his three arbitration years and is under club control until 2028.
“[I’m] not necessarily surprised, but I would say it’s just fit expectations,” Toboni told MLB.com about teams’ interest in the Nationals. “A lot of that is we have some really good players that teams are interested in. And if they’re willing to ‘throw down,’ so to speak, it’s now just up to us, like, 'Hey, do we want to seriously entertain these offers or do we want to move forward with trying to get the best out of these players?'”