The 2025 Major League Baseball season ended early Sunday morning, in just about as dramatic fashion as possible. Whether you were happy, upset or indifferent to the result, you have to admit Game 7 of the World Series was an all-timer.

Now, as the Dodgers prepare for another victory parade and the Blue Jays come to grips with as narrow a defeat as it gets, the rest of the baseball world enters the offseason. And around here, there’s a lot to do.

It’s already been plenty busy for the Nationals, who named Paul Toboni their new president of baseball operations one month ago and named Blake Butera their new manager four days ago. In between, Toboni made a number of changes to the front office. But there’s still so much more to do, and that’s before we even get to the roster.

There are plenty more openings to fill in the front office, and though Toboni so far has brought in several execs who previously worked alongside him in Boston, he’s also going to need to look outside his comfort zone as he assembles the rest of the baseball operations department. Perhaps next week’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas will provide an opportunity for him to meet with candidates in person.

Butera, meanwhile, needs a coaching staff. The Nationals aren’t holding a press conference to formally introduce the 33-year-old for a couple more weeks because his wife just so happened to give birth to the couple’s first child Thursday, the same day he signed his contract. The club will give him and his growing family time to get settled before flying him up to D.C. for his public unveiling, but in the meantime he needs to start figuring out who is going to work alongside him in the dugout.

Once the initial shock of Thursday’s news – They hired who? He’s how old? He’s never played or coached above what level? – wore off, the case for the Nationals’ hiring of Blake Butera as their new manager crystalized.

Yeah, he’s only 33 years old, but he’s already got an impressive background as a highly successful minor league manager and senior director of player development for the Rays. He and new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni appear to share many baseball philosophies, from analytics to helping turn young players into good big league players. He was viewed within the industry as a future star, so why not snag him now before his profile grew and another franchise claimed him instead?

"I've always believed that you win with people, and from our very first conversation, it was clear that Blake is the right person and the right leader for this role," Toboni in officially announcing the hiring this morning. "Blake comes into this position with experience in a variety of roles in player development, including as a successful manager, making him uniquely qualified to get the most out of the players in the clubhouse and help us reach the next level. He possesses a strong baseball acumen and has a reputation for building strong relationships with players and staff, making him a great fit for us in Washington, D.C."

There are a number of reasons Butera makes sense for the Nationals right now. Which doesn’t make his hiring any less of a gamble for Toboni and the Lerner family.

Let’s be clear: This is a huge gamble. He’s about to become the youngest manager in Major League Baseball since 1972. And it’s not like he’s a well-known former big league player who was given a managerial job with little experience like David Ross, Stephen Vogt or Kurt Suzuki. Nor does he make up for his lack of professional experience with a track record as head coach of an elite college program like Tony Vitello.

On what was supposed to be a quiet off-day from this year’s very entertaining World Series, the Nationals made headlines Thursday by reportedly hiring Blake Butera to be their new manager.

At just 33 years old, Butera will become the youngest major league manager since the Twins hired Frank Quilici in 1972, an odd connection to the former edition of the Washington baseball team.

Butera comes from the Rays, where he mostly worked in the minor league system. So what do we know about him?

He most recently served as Tampa Bay’s senior director of player development over the past two years. Before that, he spent one season as a minor league coach and then four as a manager on the Rays farm, which has been highly regarded as one of the best player development systems in baseball. He took his first job as manager when he was just 25 years old, three years after the Rays selected him in the 35th round of the 2015 MLB Draft as an infielder out of Boston College.

The Louisiana native went 258-144 (.642) in his four years managing short-season Single-A Hudson Valley and Single-A Charleston with four first-place finishes. In his final two seasons at the helm in Charleston, he went 170-82 (.675) and won back-to-back Carolina League championships.

The Nationals are working to finalize a deal to name 33-year-old Blake Butera as their next manager, an out-of-the-box hiring of someone who never played or coached above Single-A but was highly regarded for his work leading the Rays’ much-touted player development system.

The expected hiring of Butera, which was confirmed by a source familiar with the decision, would make him Major League Baseball’s youngest manager since 1972, not to mention thrust a previously little-known figure in the sport into a high-profile job in the nation’s capital.

Unconventional as the move – which was first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan – may sound, Butera appears to align well with new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni. Well-versed in analytics and player development, Butera shares many of the qualities that made Toboni, 35, the choice of Nationals ownership to reshape the organization after 17 years under former general manager Mike Rizzo.

Butera has been employed by the Rays in one capacity or another since 2015, when the former infielder was selected in the 35th round of the MLB Draft out of Boston College. The Louisiana native played only two seasons of professional ball, never advancing beyond the short-season Single-A level, but he immediately went into coaching upon his retirement and spent the next decade working in a variety of roles for Tampa Bay.

By 2018, at the age of 25, Butera was named manager of the Hudson Valley Renegades and led that short-season Single-A club to the first of two consecutive first-place finishes in the New York-Penn League. He was promoted to manager of the low Single-A Charleston River Dogs in 2021 and led that team to back-to-back Carolina League titles, with an 88-44 record in 2022.