Paul Toboni, who had served as the assistant general manager for the Red Sox, is joining Washington's front office as their general manager. The Nats had fired Mike Rizzo before the MLB Draft this summer.
The Boston Red Sox have lost assistant general manager Paul Toboni to the Washington Nationals, with Jeff Passan of ESPN reporting on Wednesday that he's set to become the next GM of Washington.
The 35-year-old Toboni beat out Red Sox assistant general manager Eddie Romero, who was also in the mix. Others were undoubtedly interviewed as well, but those are the only known connections to the Red Sox.
While unknown to the general public, Toboni is certainly a loss for the Red Sox, with Passan noting that he ran the draft when the team selected future superstars like Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Kristian Campbell, Kyle Teel and Chase Meidroth. Anthony was perhaps on a Rookie of the Year trajectory before being lost with an oblique injury.
Toboni had been hired by the Red Sox as an intern before getting involved in scouting and player development. He also served as an intern for the Oakland Athletics.
He played his college ball at Cal, getting in 24 games for the Golden Bears. He helped Cal get to the College World Series in 2011.
The Nationals fired previous general manager Mike Rizzo right before the draft, even though they had the No. 1 pick in the draft. Washington won the World Series in 2019 but has seen a steady drain of talent since then, losing Stephen Strasburg, Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Max Scherzer, Kyle Schwarber and others.
They do have a nice core to build around now, led by James Wood and MacKenzie Gore.
As for the Red Sox, they'll move forward with their own general manager search, as chief baseball officer Craig Breslow also wants to add to their hierarchy. Boston enters play on Wednesday at 86-71 and in possession of the second wild card spot in the American League.
They haven't been to the playoffs since 2021 and they last won the World Series in 2018.
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