The Washington Nationals are finalizing a deal to hire 33-year-old Blake Butera as their manager, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday on condition of anonymity because nothing had been announced. The Nationals fired Dave Martinez in July, and Miguel Cairo took over on an interim basis.
Butera would be the youngest manager since the Minnesota Twins’ Frank Quilici in 1972, according to ESPN, which first reported Butera’s hiring.
The Nationals have had six straight losing seasons since Martinez managed them to the 2019 World Series title. They went 66-96 this year.
Washington also fired president and general manager Mike Rizzo in July. Paul Toboni is the new president of baseball operations.
Butera was a senior director of player development in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. He played two seasons in the Rays minor-league system after being drafted in the 35th round out of Boston College in 2015. It didn’t take him long to go into managing.
He was a bench coach for short-season Hudson Valley in 2017, then was promoted to manager the following year, becoming the youngest skipper in minor-league baseball at 25. He managed Hudson Valley for two seasons and Class A Charleston (2021-22) for two more.
Butera’s player development background may be even more intriguing for the Nationals, who broke up their championship core by trading Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Max Scherzer and have tried to rebuild around players such as 23-year-old slugger James Wood. It has been slow going.
Toboni is just a couple of years older than Butera, and now the Nationals move forward with those two leading the way after an extended stretch under Rizzo and Martinez. They’ll certainly hope this new pairing can bring them to similar heights.
Washington has not spent much recently, and after a couple of years attempting to sell the team, Mark Lerner and his family decided not to. But the young core still has potential. Wood hit 31 home runs this year in his first full season. The Nats also selected shortstop Eli Willits with the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft.
The Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies managerial vacancies remain open heading into the offseason. The Texas Rangers hired Skip Schumaker, the Baltimore Orioles went with Craig Albernaz, the San Francisco Giants pulled Tony Vitello from the college ranks, the Los Angeles Angels picked Kurt Suzuki and the Twins announced Thursday they had chosen Derek Shelton.
AP’s Howard Fendrich contributed.