MLB: Washington Nationals at Chicago Cubs
Matt Marton

This is an excerpt from the Opening Day edition of the Fantasy Baseball Today Newsletter. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox five times a week for free to stay up to date on everything you need to know to win your Fantasy Baseball league. 

New year, new me. That seems to be the approach Mackenzie Gore is taking to the 2025 season, and at least on Opening Day, he looked like the absolute best possible version of himself. 

Gore absolutely dominated an excellent Phillies lineup on Opening Day, dicing them up for 13 strikeouts in his six shutout innings, allowing just one hit and no walks. And he did it with a whole new approach that could help him solve his biggest issue so far in the majors, his struggles against left-handed hitters.

Gore debuted a new slider in this one, taking about five mph off the pitch and adding a bit of extra two-plane break. His slider last season had morphed into more like a cutter, sitting at 91 mph with minimal break, and while it proved to be a useful weapon against right-handed hitters, lefties had no issues with it, sporting a .365 expected wOBA against it with a paltry 24.2% whiff rate. Gore's confidence in this new-look pitch was evident in his approach, as 95% of his pitches to lefties were either four-seamers or sliders – he didn't throw the slider once to a righty.

That wasn't the only change he made, as Gore also debuted a new cutter that played like a traditional cutter, featuring less drop than last year's slider with similar horizontal movement. He threw six of them, exclusively to righties, and he generated three whiffs with the pitch, which is a pretty good sign for a first time out. He also threw a handful of changeups and curveballs to righties, as he did last season, and both pitches were generally pretty effective for him. 

Gore flashed upside at multiple points last season, but consistency was hard to come by, so I don't want to anoint him as the Next Great Ace because of this performance -- I thought he was making the leap after a couple of starts last April only for a slump to derail the hoped-for breakout. But it's impossible not to be impressed by this kind of showing, and it makes Gore one of the key pitchers to watch over the next few weeks. If what he showed on Opening Day was for even a little bit for real, I think there could be top-25 SP upside here. Now, he just has to show it wasn't a fluke. 

It's important not to overreact to Opening Day, of course – it's just one game. But the kind of changes Gore made could be potentially transformative, and it would similarly be a mistake to totally ignore it just because it's only one game. I'm even moderately inclined to throw out a few buy-high offers out for Gore this weekend because if I could get him for just a top-60 SP price like he was drafted as there's plenty of room for profit there.