As the dust settled from last week’s trade of MacKenzie Gore, with plenty of thoughts coming to the forefront about the five prospects the Nationals got from the Rangers and what this all means about the new front office’s short-term and long-term intentions, another question eventually came to mind: Who exactly is going to fill out the Nats’ 2026 rotation at this point?

It’s a question, quite honestly, that doesn’t come with a very reassuring answer.

Even with Gore, the Nationals’ projected rotation looked thin on sure things. Now, it’s even thinner.

If he had to pick five starters right now to open the season, new manager Blake Butera probably would choose (in no particular order) Cade Cavalli, Brad Lord, Jake Irvin, Foster Griffin and (if healthy and ready to go) Josiah Gray. The options beyond that include Mitchell Parker, Andrew Alvarez and maybe Rule 5 Draft pick Griff McGarry (who you’d think is more likely to open the year as a long reliever). Then there are DJ Herz and Trevor Williams, each still recovering from elbow surgery but perhaps ready to go sometime around May.

Is that what the Nationals rotation will actually look like come late-March? Maybe, though again it would feature a lot more questions than answers.

The pertinent question today is: Would Paul Toboni acquire another starter before Opening Day? And not just taking a flier on a nonguaranteed, minor league deal, but signing an actual big leaguer to a guaranteed contract?

“I do think there are major league free agents still out there. Whether we are going to be the ones that win the auction for their services, I’m not sure,” the president of baseball operations said over the weekend in an interview on the Nats Chat podcast (co-hosted by yours truly). “But we’re having ongoing conversations with a number of these players. And I think especially with MacKenzie now departing the rotation, we’re going to be active there in the starting pitcher market.”

A quick scan of the free agent market shows a whole host of proven starters who remain unemployed with only two weeks to go before pitchers and catchers report. The list includes (but is not confined to): Framber Valdez, Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt, Jose Quintana, Zack Littell, Walker Buehler, Tyler Anderson, Griffin Canning, Aaron Civale, Patrick Corbin, Erick Fedde, Miles Mikolas, Chris Paddack, Martin Perez, Cal Quantrill, Tomoyuki Sugano and (oh, yeah) Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

That’s 19 starters with an actual, major league track record still available. Toboni may not know if he’s going to “win the auction” for any of them, but you’d like to think they could still land somebody on the list without it costing a fortune.

Could they get by with what they already have in place? Sure. And several of those candidates within the organization have a real chance to be decent-to-great.

But none of them is a sure thing right now, and that’s the most troublesome aspect of this saga. Every big league rotation needs at least one sure thing, even if the only sure thing about him is the fact he’ll make 30 starts and give your team a reasonable chance to win on a regular basis.

As for other positional needs that still remain as the clock ticks toward spring training, Toboni mentioned both the bullpen and first base.

“I think you always have to stay connected to the reliever market,” he said. “And then we’ll be opportunistic around the field as well. First base is a position that comes to mind. Even the outfield. We’re going to be opportunistic.”

The Nationals’ current situation at first base is a strange one. They have several players on either major league or minor league contracts with some experience (Luis Garcia Jr., Andres Chaparro, Matt Mervis, Mickey Gasper, Warming Bernabel, Abimelec Ortiz) but they have nobody with a proven track record or considerable experience at the position at the big league level.

“We have a number of players right now within the organization that I think complement each other well, and I think could fill that hole,” Toboni said. “But like I said, that doesn’t mean that we stop looking, whether in minor league free agency or major league free agency. We’re always looking for ways to improve the team. We’ll continue to do that. Whether we sign a player or not, I’m not exactly sure. We’ll see what the market has to offer. But we want to stay connected to it.”