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The Nationals are finalizing a deal to hire Paul Toboni from the Red Sox as their new head of baseball operations, ultimately choosing to bring in an up-and-coming outside voice to lead the organization rather than staying in-house.
The deal with Toboni is not done yet, but sources familiar with the move confirmed the 35-year-old has been selected by the Lerner family as the choice to replace Mike Rizzo, who was fired as president of baseball operations and general manager in July after 16 years in the position.
Still unclear is Toboni’s new title with the Nationals, whether he is named president of baseball operations, general manager or both, and whether he’ll have a GM as his second-in-command, whether that’s current interim GM Mike DeBartolo or someone else.
No official announcement has been planned yet, but the club has hoped all along to be able to introduce its new head of baseball operations just before or immediately after the season ends Sunday, with Major League Baseball discouraging teams from holding major press conferences during the postseason (which begins Tuesday).
Toboni was one of at least seven reported candidates for the job, joined by DeBartolo, fellow Red Sox assistant GM Eddie Romero, Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes, Cubs GM Carter Hawkins, Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman and Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye. From that group, only Byrnes (a D.C. native) had previously held a full-time job running a baseball operations department (both Arizona and San Diego).
While DeBartolo (Rizzo’s longtime assistant GM who ascended to the interim position after the July 6 firing) and several others under consideration come from an analytics-heavy background, Toboni has experience in both scouting and analytics.
A San Francisco native, Toboni played 24 games of college baseball at Cal-Berkeley in 2011-12 before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political economics. He went on to receive an MBA from Notre Dame. He got his first job in 2013 with the Athletics as a baseball operations interim, then joined the Red Sox in 2015 in a similar role.
Over the course of a decade in Boston, Toboni steadily climbed the organizational ladder, from area scout (2015-16) to assistant director of amateur scouting (2016-19) to director of amateur scouting (2019-22) to vice president of amateur scouting and player development (2022-23) to his most recent position as senior vice president and assistant GM since November 2023.
Toboni was viewed as a strong candidate to be promoted again this winter to Red Sox GM, second-in-command to chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, but it appears he has chosen to run his own department in Washington instead.
The Nationals surely were impressed with Toboni’s role running Boston’s draft room from 2020-22, when the franchise selected current major league infielder Marcelo Mayer and outfielder Roman Anthony. He took on added responsibilities with player development and contract negotiations over the last few years.
Once he’s officially hired, Toboni will face a number of pressing tasks. He’ll need to fill out the rest of his front office, deciding whether he wants to retain any current staffers or bring in more outsiders. He’ll need to conduct a managerial search, with interim manager Miguel Cairo unlikely to be the choice to return in 2026, and then likely a new coaching staff. The club ideally would like to accomplish all this by late-October or early-November at the latest.
DeBartolo, 41, was seen throughout the process as a strong candidate to be named the full-time head of baseball operations, given his 13 years of experience with the organization, analytics background and comfortability working with ownership. According to sources familiar with his thinking, he has been open to remaining with the Nationals even if he didn’t get the top job, working for a new head of baseball operations under the right circumstances.
