With a new president of baseball operations and a new manager, there were no shortage of Nationals-related topics to bring up at the Winter Meetings this week. Paul Toboni and Blake Butera were peppered with all sorts of questions during their three days in Orlando, and while some of those garnered the immediate headlines, a few more didn’t make the first cut.

With that in mind, let’s go back through the notebook and present Toboni and Butera’s thoughts on some other topics we didn’t get to earlier in the week …

* While we did print their answers to questions about the possibility of trading CJ Abrams, we didn’t get to the question of what position the new brain trust expects him to play if he’s not dealt this winter.

Abrams’ defensive struggles this season were well-documented. Of the 22 major league shortstops who played enough innings to qualify, he ranked 19th in Defensive Runs Saved (minus-6), 20th in Outs Above Average (minus-11) and 21st in Fangraphs’ all-encompassing defensive metric (minus-3.2).

Much of those negative numbers came during a particularly rough second half. After committing nine errors in his first 89 games, Abrams was charged with 13 over his final 53 games (including four during a five-day span in September).

Paul Toboni and Blake Butera each had attended several previous Winter Meetings in their roles with the Red Sox and Rays, respectively. Toboni had participated in high-level meetings in the organization’s suite, during which free agents were signed and trades were completed. Butera had met with fellow minor league managers and farm directors, and had even been one of the club representatives sitting at Tampa Bay’s table at the annual Rule 5 Draft.

Neither man, however, had ever been in these kind of positions of authority. Toboni had never been the one giving the final green light on a trade, nor led the meetings with top agents like Scott Boras. Butera had never been interviewed by reporters, nor asked to pose for photos with the likes of Terry Francona and Dave Roberts.

This week’s event in Orlando was both familiar and unfamiliar to the two 30-somethings now controlling the fate of the Nationals.

Asked if this feels different from his previous times attending the Winter Meetings, Butera smiled and said: “It does. One hundred percent.”

This felt decidedly different for the Nationals as a whole. The last time someone other than Mike Rizzo led baseball operations at the meetings was 2008. The last time someone other than Davey Martinez held a managerial press conference at the event was 2016.

ORLANDO, Fla. – The new Nationals front office’s first Rule 5 Draft pick is an experienced right-hander with elite stuff and high strikeout numbers, but a penchant for walking batters at an alarming rate.

Paul Toboni and Co. decided to take a shot at Griff McGarry, a University of Virginia graduate who spent the last five seasons climbing the ladder in the Phillies’ farm system but never got a shot in the majors because of his inability to consistently throw strikes.

McGarry, 26, was selected with the third pick in this afternoon’s Rule 5 Draft, behind fellow righties RJ Petit (Rockies) and Jedixson Paez (White Sox). The Nationals will give him a shot to make the Opening Day roster, then hope to keep him on the major league roster the entire season without offering him back to Philadelphia.

“The stuff stands out, the velocity,” manager Blake Butera said. “I’ve also heard, even since we just took him, some people have reached out to say what kind of kid he is, what kind of worker he is. We’re just excited to get somebody with that kind of stuff, obviously coming from a great organization. And you build in the work ethic and the character, it seems like a pretty good fit.”

The good with McGarry: His mid-to-upper 90s fastball, and multiple sharp breaking balls, all rate as elite pitches according to advanced metrics. Across 287 minor league innings since 2021, he has allowed only 182 hits while striking out 420 batters. His 13.34 strikeouts per nine innings this season ranked fourth across the entirety of Minor League Baseball, and the Phillies named him their organizational pitcher of the year.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Though most mentions of the Nationals at these Winter Meetings have focused on the players they may be willing to trade, for the record they are in fact also looking to add players via free agency.

“Absolutely, and those conversations have been going for some days, weeks now,” president of baseball operations Paul Toboni said Tuesday evening. “But you know how it is: Once the Winter Meetings get rolling, especially day two, some of these deals start to come through. I will say it’s moving a little bit slower, for whatever reason. But we’ll see how these next couple days go.”

Tuesday saw major free agent news involving two other teams in the National League East. The Phillies re-signed Kyle Schwarber for five years and $150 million, locking the slugger up through his age-38 season. The Mets lost longtime closer Edwin Diaz to the Dodgers, who were willing to pay the soon-to-be 32-year-old $69 million over three seasons. And shortly before midnight, old pal Kyle Finnegan re-signed with the Tigers for two years and $19 million.

Whether those deals open the floodgates for others remains to be seen. The meetings conclude this afternoon with the Rule 5 Draft, so time is running out for teams to finalize deals before leaving town. Then again, the meetings often serve merely as a forum for executives and agents to meet in person and lay the groundwork for agreements that come later in the offseason.

Toboni and his new-look front office have met with several agents and discussed several free agents while here. They aren’t expected to get involved in long-term, high-dollar sweepstakes, but they acknowledge there are specific areas of need they intend to address via the open market.

ORLANDO, Fla. – For the second time in three years, the Nationals entered the MLB Draft Lottery knowing they were ineligible for one of the top picks. And for the second time in three years, they learned after the fact they would’ve emerged with one of the top picks if not for the event’s convoluted rules.

The Nats will hold the No. 11 overall pick in the 2026 Draft, a position that was already sealed but became official tonight with the completion of the fourth annual Draft Lottery at the Winter Meetings. But had they been eligible, they would’ve been awarded the No. 2 pick after their combination of ping pong balls was drawn shortly after the White Sox’s combination was drawn for the No. 1 pick.

According to Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, the designated pool reporter witnessing the actual lottery held several hours prior to the televised event, the Nationals’ combination of balls actually came up in four of the first nine draws. Each time, they were ruled ineligible, and another draw was made.

Why were they ineligible? The rules MLB established when creating the lottery in 2022 say that no team may participate in the lottery three consecutive years, and no team that is designated as a revenue-sharing payor (as opposed to receiver) may participate in the lottery in back-to-back years.

Because the Nats won the 2024 lottery – securing the No. 1 pick they would use to draft shortstop Eli Willits – and because they’re considered a revenue-sharing payor, they were ineligible this year. Despite finishing with the majors’ third-worst record, they could only pick 11th in next summer’s Draft. (They will, however, hold the third pick from the second through the 20th rounds.)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Though filling out what’s now a 12-man coaching staff has occupied the majority of Blake Butera’s time the last month, the Nationals’ new manager has also made a point to reach out to his entire roster of players and start to develop relationships with every one of them long before they report to spring training.

His biggest takeaway from those conversations? These players are extremely motivated to get better, and they’re ready to put in the work that will be required.

“Obviously, I didn’t get to talk to these guys until after I signed on for the job,” Butera said. “But I told (president of baseball operations Paul Toboni) right away: ‘Man, I was really excited about this.’”

The roster Butera inherits is one of the youngest and least experienced in baseball. It’s coming off a hugely disappointing season that included 96 losses, bottom-of-the-league rankings in a number of meaningful categories and the midsummer firings of their longtime general manager and manager.

Several players have acknowledged the team’s struggles in fundamental areas and a desire to clean that up, no matter their own personal accomplishments. And they quickly conveyed that message to their rookie manager.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Since his hiring two months ago to take over a Nationals organization that had become stagnant, perhaps the most intriguing question Paul Toboni had to face concerned a potential timeline for this organization to return to the prominent perch it once held.

The young president of baseball operations has been careful not to answer that question with any specifics, simultaneously referring to the talent already in place here and the need to think long-term. But his words and actions over the last week have seemed to tilt more in one direction than the other.

With Jose A. Ferrer traded to the Mariners for Harry Ford, with MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams very much drawing interest from other clubs, with little indication they intend to pursue top-tier free agents right now, the Nationals still appear to be prioritizing the long-term over the short-term.

“Building a team that becomes the envy of sport is an ambitious goal,” Toboni wrote in a letter to fans published by the team Monday. “Some days it will feel as if we’re moving quickly; others might feel like we’ve hit rush-hour traffic on the Beltway. There will be pockets of frustration. It will certainly take time, measured in years.”

Put another way: Toboni doesn’t seem to view his job as completing the rebuild former general manager Mike Rizzo began in July 2021. He seems to view his job as starting his own rebuild in December 2025.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Though they could still add a few more names in the next week or two, the Nationals’ 2026 coaching staff essentially is complete. It’s a group featuring a bunch of 30-somethings, most of them having never played in the major leagues, more than half of them having never coached in the major leagues.

Blake Butera, at 33 the majors’ youngest manager in more than five decades, has assembled a diverse staff that features a few experienced coaches but plenty of others who have taken a less conventional path to D.C.

The oldest member of the staff is 50-year-old Michael Johns, who becomes Butera’s bench coach after two seasons as first base coach with the Rays, for whom he also managed in the minors for nine seasons. The only others in their 40s are catching coach/run game coordinator Bobby Wilson (42), who spent the last five seasons as Rangers catching coach following a 10-year playing career, and assistant pitching/bullpen coach Dustin Glant (44), who has some minor league coaching experience but most recently served as pitching coach at Indiana University.

Besides Wilson, the only others to play in the big leagues were Sean Doolittle (39), who returns as assistant pitching coach, and first base/outfield/baserunning coach Corey Ray (31), who appeared in one game for the Brewers in 2021 before becoming a minor league manager in the Cubs organization.

The seven staff members who have coached in the majors before are Johns, Doolittle, Wilson, field coordinator Tyler Smarslok (33, formerly Marlins first base coach), hitting coach Matt Borgschulte (35, formerly Orioles and Twins hitting coach), pitching coach Simon Mathews (30, formerly Reds assistant pitching coach) and bullpen catcher/development coach Grant Anders (29, formerly Orioles development coach).

ORLANDO, Fla. – As he officially completed his first trade as Nationals president of baseball operations Saturday, Paul Toboni didn’t pause to consider the significance of that moment for him. Not that trading Jose A. Ferrer to the Mariners for two young players, including top catching prospect Harry Ford, wasn’t a big deal. But in his mind, it was merely the final step in a process he believed made sense for his club.

Besides, Toboni had a more pressing matter to deal with in his backyard.

“This is going to be a little anticlimactic, I think, because it was,” he said. “Maybe it’s the amateur scouting background, but I think I’m just used to making those decisions and moving on. So, we made the decision, and I kept throwing Wiffle balls to my kid and had a conversation with Harry, talked to Jose.

“I think part of the reason why I had that reaction was because there was so much work done ahead of time. And that makes you feel really comfortable when it does get done like that. This is what we had planned out for weeks. If we are going to make a trade here, this is what we want. All that thought kind of had been done beforehand.”

On the flip side of those conversations were three players who weren’t expecting the news they received. Ford, in particular, took it hard.

ORLANDO – Good morning from The Signia Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek on the property of Walt Disney World, site of this year’s Baseball Winter Meetings. Yeah, I won’t be using that full title again the rest of the week. You’ll just have to trust me when I refer to the event’s venue, a new one in the traditional rotation that for a long time included the nearby Swan and Dolphin Resort but has apparently grown too large for that place.

The meetings officially commence this morning, but pretty much everyone of consequence arrived over the course of Sunday afternoon and evening, getting themselves situated for the three-day event that concludes Wednesday afternoon with the Rule 5 Draft.

The venue is new, and most of the people representing the Nationals here are new as well. This is Paul Toboni’s first Winter Meetings as president of baseball operations, and he’s got several new lieutenants with him who we will be meeting in the coming days, including assistant general manager for player development Devin Pearson and assistant GM for player acquisitions Justin Horowitz. Both previously worked alongside Toboni with the Red Sox, with Horowitz making a stop with the Pirates in between.

Mike DeBartolo, who admirably served as interim GM from July through September before becoming Toboni’s senior vice president and assistant GM for baseball operations, also should be here.

That group already was busy before ever leaving D.C., completing a surprising trade Saturday that sent closer Jose A. Ferrer to the Mariners for catcher Harry Ford and pitching prospect Isaac Lyon. We are expected to speak to Ford today and get his first thoughts on the trade and the opportunity he’ll now get to become the Nationals’ catcher of the present and future.

As the baseball world comes together in Orlando this week for the annual Winter Meetings, so many questions will swirl around the industry.

Which free agents will sign? What big names will be traded? Which teams will appear to be going all-in for 2026?

Unfortunately, sometimes the Winter Meetings leave a lot of questions unanswered. On the other hand, sometimes we get an eventful week where a lot of questions are answered, leading to more intriguing follow-up ones for the upcoming season.

For the Nationals, there are a number of questions revolving around them and new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni this week. One of them was answered last night with the Nats trading left-hander Jose A. Ferrer to the Mariners for two prospects: catcher Harry Ford (Mariners' No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline and No. 6 per Baseball America; No. 3 catching prospect in baseball per Pipeline) and right-hander Isaac Lyon (2025 10th-round pick out of Grand Canyon University).

We might not get the answers to the rest of them, but here are some other questions we should get answers to …

Turns out Paul Toboni didn’t want to wait until he arrived in Orlando to make his first significant transaction running the Nationals. The new president of baseball operations got an offer he liked from the Mariners on Saturday and finalized a trade that sends Jose A. Ferrer to Seattle in exchange for top catching prospect Harry Ford and young pitching prospect Isaac Lyon.

And if you saw this one coming … well, congrats, because you’re the only one in the world who did.

When considering potential trade candidates off the Nats roster this winter, the focus seemed to be on guys who are a bit closer to free agency, such as MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams. Ferrer? He was under club control for four more seasons, a 25-year-old lefty with a dynamic arm who already flashed the potential to be an elite back end reliever during the second half of this season.

Why would a team prioritizing young players with plenty of club control trade away a potential building block like that? Because of what the Mariners offered back, specifically in Ford.

This is one of the top catching prospects in baseball, a first-round pick in 2021 who has ranked among the top 100 prospects in the sport the last three seasons, currently 42nd according to MLB Pipeline. He’s 22 years old, sports a .405 on-base percentage, .832 OPS and 92 stolen bases in 454 minor league games played over five seasons.

The first big domino to fall for the Nationals this offseason did so before next week’s Winter Meetings even officially started. New president of baseball operations Paul Toboni didn’t wait to meet with other general managers face-to-face in Orlando to pull off his first trade as the new head of Washington’s organization.

Toboni decided to part ways with a left-handed pitcher, but it’s not the one you’re thinking of.

Jose A. Ferrer has been dealt to the Mariners for prospects Harry Ford and Isaac Lyon, the Nats announced this evening.

Ford is a 22-year-old catching prospect who made his major league debut this season with Seattle. He was the Mariners' No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline and their No. 6 per Baseball America. Pipeline has him as the No. 3 catching prospect in the sport and the No. 42 prospect overall. Baseball America ranks him at No. 74 in its top 100.

The 12th-overall pick in 2021 out of North Cobb High School in Kennesaw, Ga., Ford hit .283 with an .868 OPS, 16 home runs, 18 doubles, 74 RBIs and seven stolen bases in 97 games with Triple-A Tacoma. He displayed a strong eye in the batter’s box by striking out just 88 times in 458 plate appearances for a 19.1 percent rate.

Whether you agreed with the decision to trade Juan Soto way back in 2022 or not, you understood the selling point of the move from the Nationals’ perspective. Yes, they had just dealt away a generational, homegrown, championship-winning player at 23. But in return they got five of the Padres’ top prospects, perhaps the most impressive trade haul in major league history.

And when three of those prospects became National League All-Stars within three years, with hope still for the other two guys to become permanent big leaguers at some point, it was hard to refute the logic.

But there was a second half to the equation. Yes, the Nats wanted as many of those prospects to develop into future stars and dwarf Soto’s value to the club. But then they wanted those players to become part of the franchise’s next championship-contending roster.

That, of course, has not happened yet. And now, with the front office that made that monumental trade no longer in charge, comes a question few could have imagined at the time: Might the Nationals trade one or more of the players they received in the Soto trade before actually winning anything?

It’s among the most intriguing questions of this offseason and one of the toughest decisions new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni must confront in the coming weeks.

For most, Thanksgiving is a time for the familiar. For traditions, whether that comes in the form of the food we eat, the family members and friends we gather with, the football games and parades we watch. It’s the ultimate comfort holiday.

For the Nationals, this Thanksgiving is all about the unfamiliar.

Think about it. For the first time in 17 years, there’s a brand-new person in charge of baseball operations. For the first time in eight years, there’s a brand-new person in charge of the major league team. There are tons of new people working underneath both of those leaders. And we expect there to be a decent number of new players taking the field come Opening Day 2026.

So, instead of celebrating familiar traditions today, perhaps it’s time we all embraced change. Instead of turkey, how about serving lasagna for dinner? Instead of pumpkin pie, how about chocolate cake for dessert? And instead of football, how about watching old reruns of the 2019 World Series?

Not ready for that kind of dramatic change quite yet? OK, fair enough. Change can be difficult. And maybe it’s best to take baby steps, not giant leaps all at once.

Throughout this offseason’s hiring process, we’ve been able to connect some dots to people who we wouldn’t have otherwise believed to be connected.

Despite operating in varying roles in the same division for a long time, the Nationals’ new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni (who spent the last 10 years with the Red Sox) and new manager Blake Butera (who spent the last the last 10 years with the Rays) had never met in person before Butera’s first interview. In fact, Monday’s introductory press conference for the new skipper was only the second time they had met in person.

Toboni came to learn more about Butera from a phone call from Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, who employed the new Nats manager as his bench coach for Team Italy in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. Butera is very close with new Orioles manager Craig Albernaz, who coached him during his only two seasons as a professional baseball player in the lower levels of the Rays minor league system.

And so on and so forth.

Little did we know that when the Nats’ new leadership hired a previously unknown name as their new pitching coach that 1) They would also be retaining at least one beloved holdover from the previous coaching staff and 2) That person would already have a close relationship with the new guy in charge of pitching.

While most of today’s festivities at Nationals Park were focused on the official introduction of 33-year-old Blake Butera as the Nationals’ new manager, some news on his coaching staff also came out.

Sean Doolittle, the Nats’ former All-Star closer and fan favorite reliever who became a pitching strategist after his playing career on former manager Davey Martinez’s coaching staff, will remain on Butera’s staff, new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni announced in a scrum with the local media after today’s press conference. Doolittle’s exact title has not yet been determined, but Toboni believes that will be made known in the next week or two.

“Sean Doolittle is going to be coming back to the staff, so we're really excited about that,” Toboni said. “Sean, I just really liked getting to know him over the course of the past month, or however long it's been. I think the world of him. And coincidentally, he's got a great relationship with the pitching coach that we hired (Simon Mathews). They're very tight, so it ended up just being a really good relationship, I think, from the get-go, and it actually became an appealing part of Simon signing on here. Those decisions were totally independent of each other, but it turned out to be a really nice thing. So it speaks to Sean and the type of person he is, and how good he is at what he does.”

A product of the University of Virginia, Doolittle came to the Nationals along with fellow reliever Ryan Madson in a July 2017 trade with the Athletics. The left-hander was named an All-Star in 2018, with the All-Star Game taking place at Nationals Park for the first time, and he was one of Martinez’s few trusted high-leverage relievers during their run to a World Series championship in 2019.

Doolittle became a free agent after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, and after stops in Cincinnati and Seattle, returned to the Nationals in March 2022. But after six appearances, he underwent an internal brace procedure on the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow in July, which ended his season.

Well before he even knew he would be a candidate for the Nationals’ managerial job, let alone get the job, Blake Butera tuned into Paul Toboni’s introductory press conference and found himself captivated by the franchise’s new president of baseball operations.

The 33-year-old with zero major league experience came to an immediate conclusion: “I can work alongside that guy.”

Turns out Toboni also had Butera in his sights, one of several names on a long list of managerial candidates he circled as ones to remember. And that feeling was only bolstered when he got a call out of the blue from Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, who employed Butera on his Team Italy coaching staff at the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

“I have no idea what you’re doing with your search,” Piazza told Toboni, “but there’s this guy that you’ve got to interview.”

Six weeks later, these two previously unknown 30-somethings with an affinity for each other from afar, now sat behind the same dais at Nationals Park, a room packed with reporters, cameras, team executives and family members all watching as they officially began working together as the two people now in charge of this baseball club.

It's been 18 days since news first broke the Nationals were hiring Blake Butera as manager. And at long last, today we will finally get to hear from him about his vision for the job and the path that brought him here.

Butera will be formally introduced during a 1:30 p.m. press conference at Nationals Park – you can watch it live on MASN – with president of baseball operations Paul Toboni also scheduled to speak about the first major decision of his tenure here.

Why did it take 2 1/2 weeks from hiring to press conference? Because Oct. 30 was a big day in the Butera household for reasons that had nothing to do with baseball. On the same day he signed his contract with the Nats, Butera’s wife, Caroline Margolis, gave birth to the couple’s first child: Blair Margaux Butera.

With Butera’s immediate priorities focused on family in Raleigh, N.C., the Nationals decided to wait to hold the press conference until this week. Not that he hasn’t already been busy working out of the home office. Butera has hired three members of his coaching staff so far: bench coach Michael Johns, pitching coach Simon Mathews and catching coordinator Bobby Wilson (whose addition has not officially been announced yet but has been reported).

There should be plenty of opportunities for reporters to ask Butera (and Toboni) questions today. Here are some of the most interesting ones …

We will finally hear from new Nationals manager Blake Butera tomorrow afternoon, with his introductory press conference at Nats Park scheduled for 1:30 p.m. It will air in its entirety on MASN, and be sure to check back on the site and on the MASN Nationals social channels for more coverage.

This has been the most highly anticipated day on the Nats’ offseason calendar since Butera was hired over two weeks ago, the delay in the presser being due to his wife giving birth to the couple’s first child on the day he accepted his first managing job in the major leagues.

Of course, there will be plenty to dissect from what Butera and new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni say tomorrow. But the new leadership duo will have to get straight to work because there are important offseason dates coming up …

* Tuesday, Nov. 18 – Qualifying offer acceptance deadline at 4 p.m.
Toboni and Butera will have all day Monday to celebrate the new skipper’s official introduction. But the very next day, they have to get down to work.

Though this deadline does not directly affect the Nationals, who did not extend the $22.025 million qualifying offer to any players, Toboni and Co. will know after this deadline passes which free agents will cost them a draft pick if they chose to pursue and sign any of them.