The Washington Nationals are rebuilding.
From recent hires and departures involving their front office, Nationals’ ownership appears all-in on committing to a youth movement to lead the 40-man roster. Returning to National League prominence won’t be easy, and it may not come as soon as management hopes, but it should come. Strengthening the team will involve player development, and may depend on who the club drafts.
The Nationals’ principal owner, Mark Lerner, has made a clean sweep of leadership in baseball operations at Nationals Park. This past July, the two faces of the D.C.-based franchise, manager Dave Martinez and Mike Rizzo, president of baseball operations and general manager, were let go.
For Martinez, at the helm of the Nationals since the 2018 season, and only a year later piloting the club to a World Series championship over the Houston Astros, the dismissal came during the July 4th holiday weekend. After the Nationals were swept by the Boston Red Sox at home, and before the club went on the road for a series in St. Louis, the axe fell.
Rizzo, who had been the head of baseball operations since 2013 after first joining the Nationals in 2006 as an assistant general manager, parted ways with Washington the same weekend as Martinez. For the duration of the season, Mike DeBartolo served the club as interim general manager.
Once the 2025 schedule concluded, the Nationals began making key acquisitions. Traditionally, MLB clubs concentrate first on making changes to their 40-man roster. Since October, however, the Nationals have been concentrating on overhauling their front office personnel.
First up, Paul Toboni, 35, was signed as the club’s new general manager. Lured away from the Boston Red Sox, where he served as senior vice president and assistant general manager, Toboni wasted no time in building his staff.
Devin Pearson was Toboni’s first hire in an assistant general manager role. Toboni and Pearson have history working together in Boston, where Pearson served as the director of amateur scouting for the Red Sox. In his new role with the Nationals, Pearson is expected to oversee player development.
The Nationals will also add Justin Horowitz to their leadership. Recruited from the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he was the director of amateur scouting for two years, Horowitz previously worked for nine years in Boston with Toboni. In Washington, he is expected to oversee trades and amateur scouting. While with the Pirates, Horowitz’s recommendations during the annual amateur draft in July resulted in the selection of Paul Skenes (2023), Konnor Griffin (2024), and Seth Hernandez (2025).
Skenes has since earned National League Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards, and Griffin is expected to contend for the Pirates’ starting shortstop job come spring training.
Toboni has selected Blake Butera, 33, a relative unknown, to lead the Nationals as manager in 2026.
The move makes Butera the youngest MLB manager in 50 years. Butera had spent his entire 11-year professional career with the Tampa Bay Rays, where he was most recently senior director of player development. During the 2018 Minor League Baseball season, Butera, then 25, began his managerial career with short-season, Single-A Hudson Valley (N.Y.) Renegades of the New York-Penn League. While the skipper for Tampa Bay’s Single-A affiliate the Charleston RiverDogs, Butera was named the Carolina League’s 2021 and 2022 Manager of the Year.
Rounding out the new leadership roster, Simon Mathews, 30, has been named the new Washington pitching coach. Last season, Mathews was the assistant pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds. He has his work cut out for him: In 2025, the Nationals had the 29th worst MLB ERA among the 30 clubs, posting at 5.34.
Michael Johns has been tapped to be Butera’s bench coach. With more than a decade as a professional coach, Johns as a manager led teams to a Florida State League championship in 2015, and to the Triple-A International League Championship Series in 2023.
Since becoming World Series champions, the Nationals haven’t finished higher than fourth place in their division. With the MLB Winter Meetings coming up in a few weeks, and as the free agency season picks up, look for the Nationals to make informed and educated decisions on what players to pursue. The expertise of the club’s “wunderkinds” is certain to slowly but surely win the attention of MLB’s established movers and shakers.
