The Nats are a young team. Now their leadership is, too

The Nationals, in recent years, have been known for being one of the youngest teams in baseball. This offseason, their front office and coaching staff joined those ranks.

The Nationals named 31-year-old Anirudh Kilambi as general manager on Thursday. The hiring was announced by 35-year-old president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, who also tabbed 33-year-old Blake Butera as manager last month.

With this trio, the Nationals have the youngest president of baseball operations, GM and manager of any team in the Major Leagues.

“Ani is an excellent complement to the leadership group we have in place,” Toboni said in a team statement, “both in terms of his past experiences and who he is as a person.”

Of the other 29 clubs around the league, the average age of lead baseball operations executives is approximately 48 years old. The next-youngest lead baseball executives are Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey (38) and Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris (born in 1987).

Looking further at the front office, the average age of GMs of other clubs that have someone with a general-manager title under the leader of the baseball operations department is approximately 44 years old. The next-youngest executive in this role is Twins general manager Jeremy Zoll (35).

The Nats also hired Devin Pearson, 31, and Justin Horowitz, 34, as assistant general managers this offseason.

As for managers, the average age of the other 29 MLB skippers is approximately 50 years old. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol, 39, is the second-youngest in the role.

Butera also filled his coaching staff with eight coaches between the ages of 29 and 39, including 30-year-old pitching coach Simon Mathews. Bench coach Michael Johns, 50, is the most senior member of the staff.

“Someone made a joke like, ‘Did you tell Paul when you got hired that the staff has to be under 40 years old?’” Butera said with a smile at Winter Meetings. “I'm like, ‘You might not believe me, but no.’ We wanted to make sure the biggest thing is we bring in good people.”

Last season, the Nationals were the second-youngest team of hitters (25.8) and pitchers (27.3). Their young core includes 23-year-olds James Wood, Dylan Crews and Daylen Lile. Washington’s longest-tenured player, Luis García Jr., is only 25. This past July, the Nats selected 17-year-old Eli Willits with the first overall pick, the youngest player to go No. 1 since Ken Griffey Jr. in 1987.

“The common theme from a lot of the players is, we have a long ways to go,” Butera said. “... We're in the big leagues, but we're also super young. We want to continue to develop and get better. We want a staff that's going to push us to grow. That's kind of the staff we tried to build out.”

Thomas Harrigan contributed to this story.