New Washington Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni explains what drove him to leave Boston for the Washington Nationals and looks ahead to what is expected to be a rebuilding offseason ahead of 2026.
It’s a fresh start for the Washington Nationals under Paul Toboni, hired as the new president of baseball operations back in October with Blake Butera hired one month later to become the youngest MLB manager in 50 years.
But for Toboni to leave Boston, an organization he spent nearly a decade in and was reportedly on a shortlist of internal candidates to become the next general manager, he’d have to be convinced with a good offer.
There was back-and-forth whether the Nationals were the right move, but Toboni pointed to what stuck out about the Nationals enough to take the jump.
“It starts with ownership. I think - it was a complete unknown for me before hopping in, inside these walls, or getting into the interview process,” Toboni said in an interview with Buster Posey. “And I've said it in the past, but I found ownership to be an incredibly grounded, humble set of people, and so that stuck out to me.”
“Obviously, the city, Washington DC is a city that my wife and I really envisioned us living in and being happy living here. And then the combination of the fan base and just the young talent base that we have at the major league level, it's a passionate fan base. They're smart. And then also this collection of young players the big league level, I think it gives you a good foundation from which to jump off. So, yeah, really, really excited about what we have going here.”
With it being his first time in his current role, leaning on other former colleagues and mentors has helped ease the transition, advice that pointed to “moving the big rocks first.”
“And then you can pick up kind of the smaller pebbles along the way,” Toboni added. “And for me, probably the biggest rock is to solve the staffing piece, not just the Major League staff, but front office, the coaches that you're going to hire in player development, folks in your R&D group, scouts, all that's been a major item that we've wanted to really figure out these first couple months. And I think we've made strides, but you never feel like you're fully there. So I was joking with a head of baseball operations with another team the other day, it's like you spend so much time on that it's not just all the interviews, but it's the reference checks and everything that comes with it that you look up and you're like, gosh, I forgot that talking about players is part of my job. But that'll come. I think as soon as we get through the hiring season here, in the next couple of weeks, I think they'll be able to more fully dive into the player side and other parts of the organization.”
Toboni added that developing chemistry with the players is as easy as “just firing off text with each other,” adding he’s done similar with left-handed pitcher MacKenzie Gore, who has become the center of trade discussions over the last week. Whether those discussions materialize into a potential blockbuster during winter meetings set to begin next week remains to be seen with Toboni gauging interest with reportedly over half the league.
“I think that's probably fair. I don't know if there's great reason as to why, but I think that's probably maybe, at least to some extent, a byproduct of the expanded playoff pool in just those rules, right? Like, I think more teams have a shot at being really competitive, and in turn, they want to push chips in when they can right and trading for really good players and lifting your win projection, so to speak, is an important thing, and now there are more players able to do that. When I say players, as it relates to teams or players in the market that are able to do that, and I think that's a that's a really good thing for baseball, because they're more competitive teams out there,” Toboni added.