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The Nationals are hiring Anirudh Kilambi as general manager, giving president of baseball operations Paul Toboni a second-in-command executive with a strong analytics reputation within the sport after a decade working for the Rays and Phillies.
Kilambi’s hiring, expected to be made official later this week, was confirmed by a source familiar with the decision and was first reported by ESPN.
Since Toboni was hired to take over baseball operations in late-September, the question loomed whether the 35-year-old executive would hire a GM to work underneath him. Toboni proceeded to hire former Red Sox colleagues Devin Pearson and Justin Horowitz as assistant GMs and retained former interim GM Mike DeBartolo as senior vice president and assistant GM, but suggested last month he wasn’t planning to also hire a GM for now.
In the end, Toboni did bring in someone to work directly beneath him, poaching Kilambi from the Phillies, where he spent the last four seasons as an assistant GM in charge of the franchise’s research and development department.
At 31, Kilambi becomes one of the youngest GMs in baseball and follows former Giants executive Farhan Zaidi as the first top MLB executives of South Asian descent. Kilambi is a first-generation Indian American.
A graduate of Cal-Berkeley who double-majored in statistics and operations research and management science, Kilambi began working for the Rays as an intern in their R&D department in 2015. He spent seven years with Tampa Bay, climbing the organizational ladder and earning praise for his ability to acquire and develop lesser-known players (especially relievers) into quality major leaguers.
The Phillies hired Kilambi in 2022 as assistant GM in charge of R&D and data usage throughout the organization. Though that franchise hasn’t been known as an analytics trendsetter under veteran president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, Kilambi nevertheless maintained his strong reputation around the game and now found himself a candidate for a higher-ranking position in the Nationals front office.
Toboni, who graduated from Berkeley a few years before Kilambi, came from a Red Sox organization that typically employed a GM underneath a president of baseball operations. He was considered a strong candidate himself to be promoted to that position this fall under top executive Craig Breslow before accepting the Nationals’ offer to oversee the entire department.
Asked at his introductory press conference if he intended to hire a GM to work for him, Toboni left the door open for a possible addition at some point.
“Obviously, having some understanding of what the structures look like around baseball, that informs how I think through this,” he said at the time. “But am I completely tied to that? No, not at all. We can be stubborn on the vision that we have, but flexible on the details of achieving it.
“As it relates to the general manager position, these folks have been great in their support with me where, if it’s something that I think is in the best interest of the organization, we can do it. At the same time, I don’t think it’s a definite yes or no at this point in time.”
