Nationals hire 35-year-old Red Sox executive Paul Toboni to lead baseball operations

The Washington Nationals have hired Paul Toboni, 35, to lead baseball operations, a move that signals a younger, reorganized front office. The hire was confirmed by The New York Post’s Joel Sherman and first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Toboni will join the organization after a decade with the Boston Red Sox, where he rose from intern to senior vice president/assistant general manager. The move comes as Washington’s front office completes a restructuring that began with the July firing of longtime general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez. The club has not posted a winning season since its 2019 World Series title run, a streak the new leadership is aiming to reverse.

Toboni’s tenure in Boston included a rising profile within a front office that sought to rebuild and diversify the team’s baseball operations and development paths. He was widely discussed as a candidate to become the Red Sox general manager and to serve directly under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow before choosing to join the Nationals. In Boston, Toboni was part of efforts that helped fortify a minor-league system, with several players advancing to the majors this season, including Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer and Payton Tolle. His background spans roles from intern to scout to executive, a trajectory that aligns with Washington’s aim to infuse the organization with a fresh, analytics-driven approach.

The Nationals’ farm system remains a focal point of the rebuild, even as the major-league club charts a new course. Washington currently boasts three top-100 prospects in shortstop Eli Willits and right-handers Jarlin Susana and Travis Sykora, according to MLB Pipeline. The system’s standing has been mixed, ranked No. 23 by MLB.com and rated a C- by Baseball America for the year, underscoring the work ahead for Toboni and the revamped front office. The club’s broader minor-league pipeline has been a central part of the franchise’s turnaround discussions, and Toboni inherits a challenge of accelerating development while aligning with a cost-conscious but competitive blueprint in a division crowded with high-spending teams.

Washington’s NL East rivals—most notably the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies—have deep payrolls and proven track records of acquiring impact players. In this environment, Toboni’s leadership will be judged in part on how effectively he translates a young, developing core into sustained major-league success. The Nationals have signaled a long-duration rebuild, balancing the maturation of homegrown talent with selective acquisitions that can help them climb back toward contention. The 2019 title remains a benchmark, but the franchise is now pursuing a modern-era path that prioritizes development, scalable talent, and strategic hiring at upper levels of baseball operations.

As the club moves forward under Toboni’s direction, executives and scouts in Washington will be focused on short- and long-term milestones: accelerating the progression of the farm system, refining the draft and international-signing strategies, and building a resilient framework for evaluating players across levels. While the road back to relevance in the NL East will be arduous, the hiring of Toboni signals a deliberate shift toward a younger leadership group equipped to guide a contemporary baseball operation through a window of increased competitive pressure from peers in the division. The Nationals’ next steps will hinge on the integration of analytics with traditional scouting, the retention and development of homegrown talent, and a disciplined approach to trades and player development as they aim to steady a franchise that has endured several difficult seasons.