The Nationals are continuing to their attempts to get a front office in place before the offseason. Per a report from Ken Rosenthal and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic, the Nats recently interviewed Eddie Romero, assistant general manager of the Red Sox. In a tweet, Ghiroli also mentions Royals assistant general manager Scott Sharp, though it’s unclear if Sharp has interviewed for the job.
Romero was been with the Red Sox a long time, having been hired in a scouting role back in 2006. He has since risen through the ranks, getting the assistant GM and executive vice-president titles in 2018. His work in Boston is clearly respected within the Red Sox franchise. In the fall of 2023, after the Sox had fired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, Romero interviewed to be his replacement. That job ultimately went to Craig Breslow.
Romero is the second Boston assistant GM to be connected to the opening in Washington. It was reported last week that Paul Toboni is also a candidate. Today’s reporting confirms that Toboni did indeed interview for the job. However, Breslow is planning to a hire a GM to work as his second-in-command and Tim Healey of The Boston Globe writes that Toboni is a strong candidate for that position. If Toboni ultimately gets tapped for the GM role in Boston, that takes him off the table in Washington and could also lead to increased speculation about someone like Romero leaving.
Like Romero, Sharp has been with his club for many years, having been hired by the Royals in 2006. The Kansas City front office is currently headed by general manager J.J. Picollo. Sharp has been connected to a number of vacancies over the years, including the Mets’ GM search back in 2018, the Angels’ GM search in 2020 and the Giants’ GM search last year.
Sharp withdrew himself from the Giants’ GM search about a year ago, per Rosenthal. That was reportedly due to family considerations, though Rosenthal noted at that time that Sharp had an interest in running a front office at some point in the future.
The Nationals have been rebuilding for years now but the lack of progress led to president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo, and manager Dave Martinez, getting fired in July. Assistant GM Mike DeBartolo was given the GM title on an interim basis. He is a candidate to run the front office beyond the 2025 season, though the Nats have also considered a number of external candidates.
In addition to Romero, Toboni and Sharp, Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman, Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes and D-Backs AGM Amiel Sawdaye have been tied to the Nats. Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins was also in the mix but is reportedly no longer in the running.
Per Rosenthal and Ghiroli, the Nats are considering hiring both a president of baseball operations and a general manager. It’s therefore possible they hire two of these aforementioned executives, though there are perhaps others in the mix who haven’t been publicly connected to the club.
The Nats want to have those decisions made by the end of the regular season so that they can then pivot to the managerial search. Miguel Cairo has been in the interim skipper since Martinez was fired. Whether or not Cairo is a candidate to stick around is presumably dependent on who is eventually picked to run the front office and how that person wants to go about the managerial search.
Photo courtesy of Brad Mills, Imagn Images
Guess they figure one person is just a recipe for no progress.
The team has five Assistant GM’s. For context, the Yankees have two. Amazing with all that help along with the Ops team, we still couldn’t figure out the Twins were stringing us along for Joe Ryan and we had to panic trade for Dustin May at the deadline.
Craig – Yeah it’s comical how much the Sox have increased their front office payroll, particularly the analytics department, by keeping the player payroll lower than it should be. Lot’s of backscratching, nepotism and workload reduction.
Where did you hear the Twins were stringing the Sox along? It’s been confirmed Breslow didn’t attempt serious negotiations until 15 minutes before the deadline, which is a perfect example of how much a spitshow the front office is right now.
Hypothetically speaking of course, a few days out from deadline, Twins provide the names, but I will use numbers. They say they want players 1, 2, 3 and 4. We say 1-3 are fine but we need to exclude 4, and you can have your choice of 5, 6 or 7. They say if 4 is excluded, they then need 8 instead of 3. Later they say they also want 9 added. As minutes tick down to deadline, we discuss 1,2,6,8 and 9 for Ryan and Twins don’t make the trade. Any early guesses on who number 4 was? Hypothetically speaking of course…
Please take him from us!
Please take the whole front office. They’ve over stayed their welcome
I never learned the tense “was been” in the second paragraph. Is it new?
Guys with 20 years with another team, and who were then turned down for in-house promotion, don’t sound like viable options for a team that needs an inspired choice for its GM. But when this process is over, and the Nats have hired some mediocrity or other, the smart play would be to interview the guys who expressed an interest but said no when offered the job. Either the money offered will be lousy, or the Lerners will not make a good impression. The Nats need to be sold to people that will do what is necessary to win. The Lerners are not that. 2019 was a miracle.