WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Paul Toboni holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political economics, which seems useful for a job in Washington, D.C. But Toboni\u2019s unofficial college major mattered even more: He studied baseball players, and had lots of time to do it at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Toboni played shortstop, but three hip surgeries ended any hopes of advancing to pro ball. He took a handful of at-bats and watched countless more. He tried graduate school at Notre Dame, earned a master\u2019s of business administration with a specialty in finance and analytics, then decided not to use it. He wanted a career he would love.<\/p>\n
And what Toboni most enjoyed was scouting. The draft process was especially fascinating. Teams gave him internships, and he happily roamed Texas and Louisiana scouting draft prospects.<\/p>\n
Last fall, as the new president of the Washington Nationals \u2014 after a decade with the Boston Red Sox \u2014 Toboni had to choose a new manager. He was running a franchise committed to starting over, and needed a dugout leader with upside. In some ways it felt familiar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I thought about it is similar to the draft,\u201d Toboni said, \u201cwhere it\u2019s like, you have this awesome high school hitter that you can take, and you also have this feeling that if you don\u2019t take him, he\u2019s going to be the No. 1 overall pick in two or three years if he goes to college \u2013 and then you\u2019ll be sitting there kicking yourself. And so that thought was percolating in the back of my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this case, the prospect was Blake Butera, the farm director for the Tampa Bay Rays. Butera had four years of experience as a minor league manager and two more as a player. He had coached in the Australian League, the Dominican League and the World Baseball Classic. He came from a baseball family, with his father and brother also having played pro ball.<\/p>\n
The catch was that Butera was only 33. No MLB manager had been that young in more than half a century. Toboni hired Butera anyway. Always bet on talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAge is just another number, brother,\u201d said Jake Irvin, a Nationals starting pitcher. \u201cIt\u2019s just another number in this camp, and it doesn\u2019t matter at all. We\u2019re here to do something special, and it doesn\u2019t matter what anybody thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Long-ago precedent, at least, offers hope. When the Washington Senators won their only World Series, in 1924, their manager was 27-year-old Bucky Harris, who also played second base. His Hall of Fame plaque<\/a> calls him \u201cBoy Wonder\u201d.)<\/p>\n The Nationals exemplify the impulse of teams to replace one extreme with another. Toboni was born in 1990, a few months after his predecessor, Mike Rizzo, drafted Frank Thomas for the Chicago White Sox. Butera was born in 1992, about halfway into the 16-year playing career of the Nationals\u2019 last manager, Dave Martinez.<\/p>\n Rizzo and Martinez used their decades of experience to lead Washington to a title in 2019. Since then, though, the Nats are a full 162 games below .500, losing more often than any other team but the Colorado Rockies. As the architect of the rebuild, Toboni, 36, is the youngest president of baseball operations in MLB \u2013 a fitting pairing with the game\u2019s youngest manager.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have two guys under 40 who lack humility and think they know everything, it could go sideways,\u201d said Mike Gambino, who coached Butera at Boston College, where he also got to know Toboni. \u201cBut when you have two guys like Paul and Blake who are totally authentic and genuine and smart and driven \u2013 but also humble enough to be continuously learning and striving to get better \u2013 they have a chance to do some really special things together.\u201d<\/p>\n