The Washington Nationals have been arguably the most busy organization in all of baseball since the 2025 MLB season ended for them. They have had to start from scratch at numerous levels, including establishing an entirely new front office and coaching staff, but hopefully the team has new building blocks in place to build around.
Blake Butera and Paul Toboni sure aren't exactly the most experienced men in their respective roles, with Butera just 33-years-old and Toboni just 35-years-old, but together they are threatening to put together a young and hungry coaching staff and front office full of newcomers who are eager to keep updated with the latest analytical trends around the league.
Naturally, they both have been busy filling out their respective staffs this offseason, but who are the 2 latest newcomers to join them on the Nationals?
Nationals hire Grant Anders
The first hire that was announced by Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post online was that the Nationals have hired Grant Anders, formerly of the Baltimore Orioles organization, to a new role down the Beltway. Anders, who spent the past 6 years in Baltimore, is another young mind joining the Nationals' coaching staff under Butera.
Anders will serve as both a bullpen catcher and a Major League development coach, and his primary objective will be to help work on player development at the big league level. Given that this will be his main focus, it makes a ton of sense why the Nationals hireed Anders, who has previously been lauded for his analytically-driven background, which Toboni and the new front office strongly desires.
Nationals bring on Desmond McGowan
The second hire, which has not yet been announced by the club or any beat writers but has been announced by Joe Doyle from OverSlot Baseball, coming in the form of Desmond McGowan. As for his new role, he will now serve as the Director of Amateur Acquisitions, a clear title change and promotion from his days with the New York Mets.
While admittedly not very familiar with McGowan myself, here's what Doyle had to say: "Almost all of his time will be spent focusing on building out processes to target talent in the MLB Draft...McGowan comes with high marks out of New York. He spent five seasons with the Mets and was integral in helping build out their draft model. McGowan's process and philosophy in how he identifies and targets talent in the the amateur evaluation space has been lauded by those around the industry. McGowan's strengths include nurturing internal communication between scouts and the analytics department during draft preparations."
Basically, McGowan is just another young mind that the Nationals are adding to their impressive front office cabinet under Toboni, and hopefully for the Nationals his addition into the MLB Draft process can help to turn around this area of struggle for the organization.
What do you think of the most recent hires for the Nationals? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.