The front office for the Washington Nationals is going to look very different from what we are used to. With the team's new President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, set to take the reigns after being introduced a couple of weeks ago, we are beginning to learn more about who will be working alongside him.
It was announced last week that Devin Pearson would be following Toboni over from the Boston Red Sox to be his new right-hand man as an Assistant General Manager, and we now know that another prominent member of the Red Sox organization will be joining his friends in Washington.
Andrew Wright, the field coordinator for the Red Sox, will be joining the Nationals for a role that is sure to be on the player development side of the organization. This hire, similar to Toboni and Pearson, is one that is seen internally within Boston's walls as a big loss, which should be music to the ears of Nationals fans everywhere.
What does the field coordinator actually do? According to Andrew Flax on X, who is tapped in on the minor league side of things for the Nationals, found an excerpt from a Boston Globe article which described what Wright's role entailed with the Red Sox.
The article said, "As the Sox’ field coordinator, Wright had played a significant role implementing changes to the way the Sox instructed their minor leaguers in recent years, particularly the organization’s defense and baserunning." which is huge for the Nationals with what they need.
Simply put, the Nationals have not been good enough at either baserunning or defense at all levels of their organization the past few years. While the team has had success in running wild on the basepaths, often finding themselves among the most aggressive teams in baserunning which allowed them to steal a lot of bases, they also struggled with a subpar success rate given all of their attempts.
Defensively is more of the same, as the Nationals had some of the worst defenders in the league by many advanced metrics, specifically with young players like Luis Garcia Jr. and CJ Abrams, who might just have to move off of shortstop long-term due to his subpar play. Other youngsters such as Daylen Lile, Keibert Ruiz, and even James Wood early on have all had their large struggles in the field as well, and hopefully Wright will be able to help stabilize things at all levels.
The front office around Toboni is really taking shape, and hopefully the Nationals are able to ace their managerial hire and give their core of youngsters a reliable veteran or two to lean on both in their lineup and in their rotation and can improve on their abysmal 2025 season.
What do you think of the latest Nationals hire? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.