The Nationals are hiring Ani Kilambi as their new general manager, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan on Wednesday.
Kilambi will switch organizations in the NL East after previously being an assistant general manager for the Philadelphia Phillies, working with that club since 2021.
Before that, he was with the Tampa Bay Rays for more than five years.
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 fired in July during the Nationals’ sixth consecutive losing season. Manager Dave Martinez also was fired then.
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.
Mike DeBartolo took over as interim GM after Rizzo was let go and oversaw the selection of 17-year-old high school shortstop Eli Willits with the No. 1 pick in Major League Baseball’s amateur draft in July.
Paul 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 manager Blake Butera, who at 33 became the youngest skipper in the majors since the 1970s.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
