The Washington Nationals have made a surprise hire for their next manager, with Blake Butera reportedly taking the job.
Per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the 33-year-old Butera has agreed to a deal with the Nationals that will make him the youngest MLB manager since the 1970s.
Butera, whose birthday is Aug. 7, 1992, will be 33 years, 231 days old when the Nationals play their first game of the 2026 regular season.
Per Sarah Wexler of The Hardball Times, Frank Quilici is the last manager who was younger than Butera on Opening Day when he took over the Minnesota Twins midway through the 1972 season (33 years, 27 days).
A 35th-round draft pick by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2015, Butera’s professional playing career ended after two seasons in the minors. He moved into coaching starting with the 2017 season and became manager of the then-Rays short-season affiliate in Hudson Valley in 2018.
Butera served as senior director of player development for the Rays for the past two seasons. He was also a bench coach on Mike Piazza’s staff with Italy during the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
The Nationals are hoping to find stability in the managerial chair. Davey Martinez had an eight-year run with the club from 2018 to ’25, but his stint included just one playoff appearance.
That postseason run in 2019 was incredible, capped off with a seven-game win over the Houston Astros in the World Series. Martinez was fired on July 6 after a 37-53 start to this season. Miguel Cairo finished out 2025 as the interim manager, posting a 29-43 record.
Washington has been mired in a prolonged rebuild since winning the 2019 World Series. The club hasn’t won more than 71 games in the six seasons since that triumphant year.
The Nationals have also lost several star players during this period, none more than Juan Soto when he was traded to the San Diego Padres in August 2022. Their return from that deal turned out to be pretty good, with C.J. Abrams, MacKenzie Gore and James Wood all making one All-Star appearance.
Their main problem has been filling out the talent around that group. They have had five consecutive picks in the top 11 of the draft since 2021. Dylan Crews and Brady House are the only members of that group who have reached the big leagues thus far.
Even with all of those premium draft picks, MLB.com has the Nationals’ farm system ranked No. 23 with three top 100 prospects.
The Nationals were, at one point, an aggressive spending team. That has changed in recent years, so much that they ranked 24th out of all 30 teams in total spending last season.
Washington’s front office could have some wiggle room to add to the payroll with just $47.2 million in projected allocations in 2026, but the ceiling for this team will be determined by how well young players like Crews and House develop around the All-Star trio.
Despite Butera’s youth, he has plenty of experience as a coach and manager. In addition to this work at Hudson Valley, he also managed the Charleston RiverDogs in A ball from 2021 to ’22.
Few organizations in MLB are better at player development than the Rays, so it’s not a surprise the Nationals would turn to a key member of their staff to be their new manager.
Butera is taking over a long-term rebuild with the Nationals that should afford him the leash to develop in his role as they continue to add more young talent to the roster.
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