ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — When new Washington Nationals manager Blake Butera entered middle school, the Washington Nationals did not yet exist. 

His age, or lack thereof, was a main character at Nationals Park on Monday afternoon as the eighth skipper in franchise history was formally introduced. The stadium’s subterranean press conference room, adorned with red, white and blue roses, was packed to the gills for the occasion. Members of the club’s elusive ownership group, the Lerner family, peppered the front few rows. A large throng of front-office officials, clad in a department store’s worth of obligatory quarter-zips, crammed themselves into the back of the room.

Up on the podium sat just two placards; one for Butera and one for his new boss, Paul Toboni, the team’s recently hired president of baseball operations.

“As you've heard me say many times over the course of the last six weeks, I'm a strong believer that you win with people,” Toboni, 35, offered during his opening statement. “And Blake's character and ability to connect with everyone across the baseball spectrum is second to none.”

The two men then shook hands before Butera, 33, curved a red cap onto his head and pulled a crisp white uniform over his 5-foot-9 frame. He and Toboni, formerly an assistant general manager for the Boston Red Sox, briefly posed for a few pictures before the skipper, still too young to run for president, settled in to introduce himself.

“As we move forward, our identity is going to start with character,” Butera proclaimed. “I believe true leadership is built on real relationships, relationships that create unity, clarity and a shared purpose.”

The job in front of him is daunting.

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Since raising the World Series trophy in 2019, the Nationals have slogged to baseball’s second-worst record, better than only the catastrophically discombobulated Colorado Rockies. The trades conducted in the teardown of that core have borne some fruit, most notably the Juan Soto deal that brought young All-Star outfielder James Wood to D.C. 

But in the main, Washington has been a draft-and-development disasterclass, an organization distinctly unskilled at making players better. That half-decade run of ineptitude reached a turning point this past July, when a pair of title-winning stalwarts, GM Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez, were simultaneously fired.

And now, into that void, charge Toboni and Butera, a pair of unwrinkled, clean-shaven 30-somethings. Together, they come armed with fresh perspectives, cathedral expectations of themselves and almost zero big league experience. Butera, in fact, has never spent a day in a Major League dugout.

Drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 35th round of the 2015 MLB Draft after a plucky four years at Boston College, the infielder’s playing career petered out after two minor league seasons. But Butera quickly and successfully made the transition to coaching. In 2018, still just 25 years old, he was named manager of Tampa’s short-season Hudson Valley affiliate. After two strong years there, Tampa pushed him to Low-A Charleston, where he won back-to-back league championships and a Manager of the Year award. That eventually earned him a big new gig as the Rays’ senior director of player development, a role that he served in until his hiring a few weeks ago. Butera was also the bench coach for Team Italy under manager Mike Piazza during the 2023 World Baseball Classic. 

It’s an impressive résumé, but not necessarily one that would have pointed to a big league head job, at least not in such short order. In fact, Butera admitted that he entered this winter not expecting to be a part of the managerial carousel. His biggest concern was much closer to home: Butera’s wife Caroline was set to have the couple’s first child around the last week of October, right as the Nats were trying to finalize the hiring.

To simplify things, Toboni flew down to Raleigh, where the Buteras live, so that Blake could stay close to home just in case Caroline went into labor. It all came together on the same day, with Blake receiving the job offer before the birth of their newborn Blair and accepting it later that day after having become a father. It has been a whirlwind, to say the least.

But Butera, ever-youthful, did not appear worn down by the taxing, early days of parenthood. That is, by all accounts, par for the course. Despite being “young for the level” at every turn, the new skipper has thrived. Butera draws rave reviews for a special ability to communicate with players, empowering them to get the most out of their skills. In that sense, his lack of trips around the sun have proved helpful, allowing him to relate better to players close to him in age.

That will remain an important dynamic in D.C., as a young Nats roster attempts to author a pivot back to contention. A whopping 60 percent of the team’s plate appearances last season were taken by players aged 25 or younger. After a brilliant first half, Wood scuffled down the stretch. Consistency from the spindly slugger is key. So is developing the other kids on the roster, players like Dylan Crews, Brady House, CJ Abrams and Daylen Lile, into needle-moving pieces.

The pitching staff presents an even more formidable task. Only the Rockies, in their launching pad of a ballpark in the sky, had a higher ERA last season. Improvement on that front will largely be the responsibility of new pitching coach Simon Mathews, formerly an assistant with the Cincinnati Reds. Mathews, whose hiring was first reported by Yahoo Sports, is even younger than his skipper, having turned 30 just two months ago.

His hiring was yet another data point that Toboni and Co. plan to chart a new path. That dynamic was further reinforced at Butera’s news conference Monday. For better or worse, this era of Nats baseball will not unfurl with a strategy of half-measures. Over the last half decade, the Nationals have been an emblem of regressive, archaic baseball thinking. Unwilling and unable to adapt, the game passed them by, leaving them playing catch-up.

The shift under Toboni will be significant, comprehensive and immediate. Big swings will be taken. Character will be prioritized over experience. They will dream big. It is risky and refreshing. Butera may well be too young, too green for such a big job. He might be great at the gig and the players fall short anyway. Perhaps he’ll manage here for decades and oversee the glory years of D.C. baseball. Time will tell. But on Monday afternoon, he certainly looked the part and said all the right things in the right way. 

For Nats fans, it is, at the very least, a plan to believe in.

Coming off their first trip to the World Series in over 30 years, the Toronto Blue Jays have plenty of reasons to keep the momentum going into 2026. Not only did Toronto have a strong showing in the World Series despite the defeat, but they now have a roster with postseason experience and a superstar in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who showed he can carry a team in October. 

The Blue Jays’ run in 2025 left a mark on an entire country, and the team’s front office is now tasked with putting the Blue Jays back into a position to make another postseason run. 

This is why Toronto is the biggest wild card in baseball this season.

Toronto has been a suitor for some of the biggest free agents, finishing as the runner-up for Shohei Ohtani before he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers and ending as a finalist for Juan Soto before he signed with the New York Mets. 

The Blue Jays have been looking to swim in the deep end of MLB’s payroll pool by signing a major free agent, but with no success. Even without landing Soto or Ohtani, they finished last season fifth in payroll. And fresh off their World Series run, they’re looking like one of the most attractive destinations in baseball, both economically and on the field.  

“I think Mark [Shapiro] and Ross [Atkins] have done a tremendous job,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Toronto’s top player personnel executives. “And I think going back for us [is] one big thing — probably our largest kind of focal point and biggest goal was to try to create a destination spot where our own players didn't want to leave and where players from other teams wanted to come.

“And I think invariably we find ourselves going up against the Blue Jays a lot in different ways, and they have created that as well. I think they have done a really good job with their facilities, the way they communicate, and how they help get the most out of players.”

High-leverage arms, high priority for the Blue Jays

One of the biggest areas of need for the Blue Jays this offseason is getting help in the back end of their bullpen. Just a year after they signed reliever Jeff Hoffman to a three-year, $33 million deal, Toronto is back on the market for high-leverage arms.

Sources tell Yahoo Sports that the Blue Jays have been one of the more aggressive teams on the market for the offseason’s top relievers, including Devin Williams, Edwin Díaz and Pete Fairbanks. Toronto has already had initial conversations with each of the free agents.

You could understand why the Blue Jays think additional bullpen reinforcements are necessary. Despite an amazing World Series run, a lasting image from it will be Hoffman surrendering the game-tying homer to Miguel Rojas in the ninth inning of Game 7, leading to Toronto’s eventual extra-innings defeat. But even before that, the Blue Jays right-hander was having a year to forget. The Toronto closer went 9-7 with a 4.37 ERA with an AL-leading seven blown saves. 

Adding Williams, Fairbanks or Díaz would make the Blue Jays’ bullpen stronger. It remains to be seen if Hoffman would remain Toronto’s closer, move to an eighth-inning role or if the team would go closer by committee. 

What to do with Bo Bichette?  

While the bullpen is the area the Blue Jays have started to dive into right away, their biggest question is whether they’ll bring back former shortstop and now second baseman Bo Bichette.

He is a homegrown star and came up the same year as Guerrero in 2019. While Vladdy is locked in on a 10-year, $500 million extension, Bichette will have a chance to hit the open market and test his value.

The Blue Jays infielder has been one of the most consistent bats in the American League over the past five years, leading the AL in hits twice to go along with two All-Star appearances. Bichette bounced back last season after a down 2024, hitting .311 with 18 homers, 94 RBI and 181 hits before missing the final three weeks of the season with a knee injury.

And while the knee injury kept him out most of the postseason, he showed up when it mattered in the World Series, hitting .348 with a homer and a .923 OPS. 

Bichette has a strong market this winter as both a second baseman and a shortstop in a weak class for shortstops. And after showing he has the ability to play second base, where he would likely be a stronger defender, his flexibility only helps him.

Could Kyle Tucker make sense as Plan B for Bichette?

When a player is a free agent, that means there’s always a 50% chance of them signing elsewhere. And while having Bichette return to play second base and running it back in 2026 is Toronto’s Plan A, Plan B could also be tantalizing.

Kyle Tucker is the best player on this year’s free-agent market and while the Blue Jays have struck out when it comes to players atop the market, this might be the year they succeed. 

Tucker could play either corner in Toronto’s outfield, giving the Jays a strong outfield with Gold Glove winner Daulton Varsho in center field. Addison Barger could play the other corner with Nathan Lukes or shift back to the infield at third base, where he spent a majority of his time in 2025. Ernie Clement showed he could be an elite defender at both third base and second base, so a move wouldn’t be a problem for him either. 

The one thing standing in the way of Tucker being the perfect fit for the Blue Jays is outfielder Anthony Santander, who signed a five-year, $92.5 million deal last winter. Santander did not have an inaugural season to remember in Toronto, playing in just 54 games in 2025 due to injury. And when he played, he didn’t play well, hitting a paltry .175 with six homers and 61 strikeouts in 194 at-bats.

Moving Santander is likely impossible at this point for the Blue Jays. And unless they eat a majority of his deal, which teams generally don’t do this early into contracts, he’s going to be on the roster one way or another in 2026.

But if Tucker wants to be a Blue Jay, they have to find a way to make it work. Because there’s no doubt adding that caliber of player to a team that just made a World Series appearance puts Toronto back into a position to be the favorite in the American League next season.