The Washington Nationals are finalizing a deal to hire Blake Butera, a former minor-league skipper and current director of player development, as their next manager, a team source confirmed to The Athletic on Thursday.
Butera, 33, will be the youngest MLB manager in more than 50 years. When he got his first managerial gig in the Tampa Bay Rays organization in 2018, he was 25, making him the youngest manager in all of minor league baseball.
ESPN was the first to report the news of Butera’s hiring in Washington.
Butera will replace Miguel Cairo, who was the Nationals’ interim manager after Dave Martinez was fired in July alongside longtime general manager Mike Rizzo.
The hiring is the first major one made by new GM Paul Toboni. After he was named to his post earlier this month, more than a dozen baseball operations and on-field employees, including scouts, were not brought back to the organization.
Butera has spent the last two seasons as the Rays’ senior director of player development. A 35th-round pick by Tampa Bay in 2015, he transitioned to coaching after playing parts of two seasons in the minors. He was manager of the organization’s short-season affiliate in 2018 and ’19, then managed Low-A Charleston from 2021 to 2022. He became an assistant field coordinator in 2023, the same year he served as Team Italy’s bench coach during the World Baseball Classic.
Butera, an infielder, spent four years at Boston College and played two summers in the Cape Cod League.
According to FanGraphs, the youngest manager hired in recent history was Frank Quilici, whose first MLB game as manager of the Minnesota Twins was on July 7, 1972, when he was 33 years, 27 days old. The youngest manager in the majors in 2025 was the St. Louis Cardinals’ Oli Marmol, 39, who managed his first MLB game at 35. When the Nationals open the 2026 season on March 26, Butera will be 33 years, 7 months, 19 days old.
Tony Vitello of the San Francisco Giants and Kurt Suzuki of the Los Angeles Angels will join Butera in making their MLB managerial debuts next season, and there is still an opportunity for another first-timer to join the fold. Albert Pujols, Nick Hundley and Ruben Niebla are still in the mix for the San Diego Padres’ job. The Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies also have yet to hire a manager.
