WASHINGTON \u2014 Ani Kilambi is joining\u00a0the Nationals\u00a0as their new general manager, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press on Wednesday, making the 31-year-old who had been with the Philadelphia Phillies the latest young face to join\u00a0president of baseball operations Paul Toboni\u00a0in Washington.<\/p>\n
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because Kilambi’s hiring had not been announced yet.<\/p>\n
The news was first reported by ESPN.<\/p>\n
Kilambi has been an assistant general manager\u00a0for the Phillies, working with the club since 2021.<\/p>\n
Before that, he was with the Tampa Bay Rays for more than five years.<\/p>\n
Kilambi takes over a job that was held for more than a decade and a half by Mike Rizzo, who became the GM in Washington in 2009 and added the title of president of baseball operations in 2013. Rizzo was\u00a0fired in July\u00a0during the Nationals’ sixth consecutive losing season. Manager Dave Martinez also was fired then.<\/p>\n
Rizzo and Martinez were in charge in 2019 when the Nationals won the World Series, but the team hasn’t had a winning year since. Washington went 66-96 in 2025, putting it 14th out of 15 clubs in the National League.<\/p>\n
Mike DeBartolo\u00a0took over as interim GM\u00a0after Rizzo was let go and oversaw the selection of 17-year-old high school shortstop\u00a0Eli Willits\u00a0with the No. 1 pick in Major League Baseball\u2019s amateur draft in July.<\/p>\n
Toboni, 35, then was hired in late September to run the Nationals; he had been an assistant GM with the Boston Red Sox. He brought in\u00a0manager Blake Butera, who at 33 became the youngest skipper in the majors since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
There is plenty of work to be done to turn around the Nationals, who are in need of plenty of talent and depth as they try to replenish their major league roster and minor league supply of prospects.<\/p>\n
Toboni’s first move in free agency came Monday, when Washington agreed to terms with\u00a0left-handed pitcher Foster Griffin\u00a0on a $5.5 million, one-year contract, pending the successful completion of a physical exam. Griffin played in Japan the past three seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Ani Kilambi is joining\u00a0the Nationals\u00a0as their new general manager, a person with knowledge of the move…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-352251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}