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Nationals Retain Mike DeBartolo; Part Ways With Assistant GMs Eddie Longosz, Mark Scialabba

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12:21PM: DeBartolo will be staying on in Washington’s front office, Ghiroli reports in a follow-up.

12:19PM: Assistant general managers Eddie Longosz and Mark Scialabba won’t be returning to the Nationals in 2026, The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli reports.  These departures are two of what seems to be multiple changes made under new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, as Ghiroli writes that “several scouts and members of the team’s staff in Florida” are also on the way out.

It isn’t surprising that Toboni’s hiring has triggered a staff overhaul, as some prominent names left the organization even before Toboni was hired two weeks ago.  Since the start of September, former scouting director Danny Haas and senior director of amateur scouting Brad Ciolek each left the Nats for jobs with the Orioles and Tigers, respectively.  It is fair to wonder exactly how many members of Mike Rizzo’s front office will continue on with the Nationals under Toboni — most prominently, assistant GM and former interim GM Mike DeBartolo’s role with the team remains unclear.

Rizzo himself shook up the front office and player development staffs a few years ago, but Longosz and Scialabba were two of the longtime Washington staffers who stayed put.  Longosz started with the Nats in 2010 and worked as the club’s director of scouting operations for the eight seasons prior to his elevation to the AGM and vice-president role in 2023.  Specifically, Longosz was the assistant general manager of player development and administration.

Scialabba’s ties to the organization stretch back even longer, as he first joined the team in 2006.  Working as the Nationals’ director of minor league operations from 2009-13, Scialabba took over the player development department in 2013 before becoming the assistant GM of player development following the 2019 campaign.

Nationals To Hire Paul Toboni As President Of Baseball Operations

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The Nationals are finalizing a deal with Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni as the new head of their baseball operations department, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Toboni will be Washington’s president of baseball operations, reports Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic, and will hire a general manager to be his second-in-command.

The Nats’ front office had been run by Mike Rizzo for many years. He first became the general manager in 2009 and later got a title bump to president of baseball operations. The club had a lot of success during his tenure, as they were perennial contenders in the previous decade and won the 2019 World Series.

But since winning that title, they entered a protracted rebuild that they have struggled to get out of. The current campaign will be their sixth straight with a losing record. Rizzo was fired in July, along with manager Dave Martinez, as the club looked to shake things up. Assistant general manager Mike DeBartolo was made the interim general manager at that point.

Toboni is only 35 years old and appears to be a rising star in the baseball world. The Sox fired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom in 2023 and Toboni generated some interest for that job, even though he would have been only 33 years old at that time, when he was Boston’s vice-president of amateur scouting and player development.

The Sox eventually hired Craig Breslow to replace Bloom. Shortly thereafter, Toboni was promoted to assistant general manager, going into the 2024 campaign. In recent weeks, it has been reported that Breslow plans to hire/promote a general manager to work under him, with Toboni a strong candidate for that position.

But Toboni was also one of many candidates to run the Washington front office. Other reported candidates included Eddie Romero, another Boston assistant general manager, as well as Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins, Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman, Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes, Royals assistant general manager Scott Sharp and D-Backs AGM Amiel Sawdaye. Instead of settling for the #2 job in Boston, Toboni gets the #1 spot in Washington.

As Passan points out, Toboni has been running Boston’s draft in recent years as the club has stockpiled an impressive collection of young talent. That includes players who have already risen to the major league ranks, with Passan listing Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, Payton Tolle, Connelly Early and those who were included in the Garrett Crochet trade. Boston sent Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman González to the White Sox in that swap.

That is presumably of interest to the Nationals, who have struggled to develop their own draftees and signees in recent years. There is some young talent on the current big league roster but the top guys all came over in the 2023 deal sending Juan Soto to the Padres. The Nats were able to get CJ Abrams, James Wood, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana in that pact. Hassell hasn’t yet provided anything in the big leagues but Abrams, Wood and Gore have all had success. Susana hasn’t yet reached Triple-A and just underwent lat surgery but he is considered one of the top pitching prospects in the league.

By contrast, a lot of the players that the Nats drafted or signed have not panned out as expected. Over the past decade, they have used first-round picks on Carter Kieboom, Dane Dunning, Seth Romero, Mason Denaburg, Jackson Rutledge, Cade Cavalli, Brady House, Elijah Green, Dylan Crews, Seaver King and Eli Willits. Some of those players are still young and with the Nats but the club probably doesn’t feel great about that group overall.

Ideally, Toboni can help the Nats have better results going forward. Even if he can do that, it probably won’t happen overnight. It was recently reported that the franchise is dealing with some concerning systemic issues. The club has seen a few notable staff departures recently. Per Andrew Golden of The Washington Post, scouting director Danny Haas jumped ship to the Orioles a few weeks ago. Just this week, TalkNats reported that senior director of amateur scouting Brad Ciolek is leaving to join the Tigers.

Toboni’s first priority will probably to focus on behind-the-scenes details like that, before he can even turn his attention to the roster. He will also have to conduct a search for a new manager to replace Martinez, unless he wants to just keep interim skipper Miguel Cairo around for next year.

There will surely be more clarity on the details in the coming weeks. It’s unclear what’s next for DeBartolo, who was a candidate for this job but was passed over. It’s also possible this news alters the next steps for the Red Sox, who were presumably hoping to retain Toboni.

For the Nats, it’s clear that 2025 is a pivot point for them. It will be impossible to evaluate the transition for years to come but they are hoping it’s a move away from their dreary present and towards a brighter future.

Photo courtesy of Brad Mills, Imagn Images

Nationals Interview Cubs’ GM Carter Hawkins In Front Office Search

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8:36pm: The Nats have also contacted Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye and Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes, report Ken Rosenthal, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic. Sawdaye has worked as one of Mike Hazen’s top executives in Arizona for nearly a decade. Byrnes, a former head of baseball operations in San Diego and Arizona, has been part of Andrew Friedman’s team in Los Angeles since 2014. Byrnes and Sawdaye have both been in consideration in various front office searches over the past few years.

8:28pm: The Nationals interviewed Cubs general manger Carter Hawkins in their search for a baseball operations leader, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Washington dismissed longtime front office head Mike Rizzo alongside manager Dave Martinez in July.

Assistant general manager Mike DeBartolo has taken over operations on an interim basis for the past three months. That included the pivotal decision to select Eli Willits with the #1 pick in the draft and overseeing their relatively quiet trade deadline. DeBartolo has been a member of the organization for over a decade and worked as one of Rizzo’s top lieutenants for the past six seasons. Barry Svrluga of The Washington Post suggested this evening that DeBartolo is likely to get some consideration for the full-time position.

The final call should only be a few weeks away. Svrluga indicates the Nationals hope to have a decision made by the end of the season. It’s sensible they wouldn’t want an interim GM going into the offseason. Nightengale writes that Hawkins interviewed last week and calls him a “finalist” for the position. That suggests ownership has already begun to narrow the field.

Hawkins, 41, has been Chicago’s general manager since the beginning of the 2021-22 offseason. As is increasingly common, that makes him the #2 decision-maker. Title inflation around the league means that few teams now have a “general manager” atop their front office hierarchy. That’s usually held by a president of baseball operations (Jed Hoyer, in the Cubs’ case) with the GM standing as the second in command.

That’s why the Cubs would permit Hawkins to interview with the Nationals. If he were to get the job, it would represent a promotion and presumably come with his own president of baseball operations title. Before going to Chicago, Hawkins spent over a decade working his way up the Cleveland front office. He worked as an assistant GM there for five seasons.

Nationals Not Planning To Trade From Young Core At Deadline

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It has been two weeks since the Nationals sent shockwaves through the organization by firing longtime president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez.  The timing of the shake-up (a week before the draft and within a month of the trade deadline) caught many by surprise, though it looks like the change in leadership won’t lead to any major changes in direction for the club’s deadline plans.  Interim GM Mike DeBartolo told the Washington Post’s Andrew Golden and other reporters on Saturday that the Nats want to build around such players as James Wood, CJ Abrams, Dylan Crews, and MacKenzie Gore, rather than shop them at the deadline.

“I’m looking to keep the young, core group of our best players together,” DeBartolo said.  “Certainly [with] my job, if someone calls, you always listen to what they have to say.  But trading away our really high-quality young players is not something I’m looking to do right now.”

DeBartolo made a point of including Gore within “that group in terms of our young, really talented players,” noting that it’s “not a focus of mine to move him.”  Gore is both slightly older (26) and closer to free agency than the other members of the core, as Gore has two more arbitration-eligible years remaining before hitting the open market after the 2027 season.

Because of this timeline and the fact that Gore is represented by Scott Boras, there has been speculation that the Nationals could shop Gore if they feel they won’t be able to sign the southpaw to a long-term extension.  Selling high on Gore while he is in the midst of a career year would likely bring a big return back to Washington, as Gore would instantly become perhaps the most sought-after player at the deadline.  On the other hand, as Golden writes, “moving out Gore also would send the message that the Nationals are taking a step back and aren’t ready to contend in the near future.”

[Related: Washington Nationals Trade Deadline Outlook, for MLBTR Front Office subscribers]

The same logic applies to an even greater extent to Abrams (controlled through 2028) and Wood and Crews (each controlled through 2030).  Trading from this group would be tantamount to restarting the rebuild altogether, which doesn’t seem feasible for a team that already hasn’t had a winning season since 2019.  Though DeBartolo has been with the organization since 2012, it also doesn’t appear likely that an interim GM would make the call to deal a building block player, as such a major decision would likely be saved for whomever the Nationals eventually name as the new full-time head of baseball operations.

“My goal in this role, whether it’s interim or otherwise, is to build a competitive team every year,” DeBartolo said.  “As frustrating as it is to see where we are this year, my goal is to build future competitive teams and be in that playoff mix. So that’s what my focus is over the next few weeks — whatever we can do to bolster the future outlook of the Nationals and get in that playoff race as soon as we can.”

This focus likely means that the Nationals will be looking to move shorter-term players who aren’t part of that longer-term future.  Unsurprisingly, the Nats have made impending free agents Kyle Finnegan, Josh Bell, Michael Soroka, and Amed Rosario available in trade talks, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes, and first baseman Nathaniel Lowe (who is arb-controlled through 2026) is also within that group of trade chips.  Finnegan and Soroka will likely garner the most attention given how many contenders need pitching help, and the Nats figure to be a team to watch as one of the few teams in full-fledged sell mode.

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