The Rays, who just advanced to face the Brewers in the World Series, used to employ three people who now have major roles with the Nationals: general manager Ani Kilambi, manager Blake Butera and bench coach Michael Johns.
Kilambi, who started with the Rays as an intern, spent seven years with the team, ascending to assistant director of research and development. Butera was drafted by the Rays, transitioned to managing in the low-level of the minors by his mid-20s, then eventually oversaw player development. Johns was with the Rays from 2008 to 2025, spending a bulk of that time in player development, including a decade as a minor league manager.
To take the connections a step further, Shawn O’Malley, the Nationals’ assistant hitting coach, was drafted by the Rays in 2006. Beyond that, many higher-ups, including Paul Toboni, the Nats’ president of baseball operations, have worked for people who were once in the Rays’ data-obsessed brain trust. And then there’s the general idea that, as the Nationals keep building their new operation, the goal is to live on the cutting edge, which the Rays have helped make popular by winning so damn much.
In late September, a Nationals coach told me: “Process-wise, it sometimes feels like we are trying to out-Rays the Rays.”
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For any fan base, that could land in a few different ways. Even before they made this World Series, the Rays’ long run of success was undeniable, especially given that their 2026 payroll ranked 25th among 30 teams (a usual spot for them). But if part of the deal is doing more with far less spending than most competitive clubs, that could be a red flag for fans, in D.C. or otherwise, who want their team to be smart — dogged and progressive in the search for any edge — while also investing in big salaries for premium talent.
None of this is to say the Nats are aiming to be a spitting image of the Rays of recent years. The Red Sox of recent years are probably more instructive. Toboni came from Boston, as did Devin Pearson, his assistant GM in charge of player development. Justin Horowitz, Toboni’s assistant GM for all player acquisitions, was with them in Boston, too, before a short stint with the Pirates, as was Andrew Wright, now a special assistant to Toboni in Washington.
For a few seasons, Chaim Bloom, once a top exec with the Rays, was their boss in Boston, which just shows how much the Rays’ approach has spread across the sport. But when it comes to what the specific Nats-Rays connections might mean in practice, I keep thinking back to a conversation I had long before Toboni and Butera were leading the team.
Remember the Blake Snell game? Or, more specifically, remember the Blake Snell decision? As far as ways to explain the Rays and their influence on modern baseball, it remains a pretty good one.
In Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, Snell, then a starting pitcher for the Rays, had the Dodgers in knots. Through five innings, he had allowed one hit and no runs while striking out nine. The Rays led 1-0. But after Austin Barnes poked a one-out single in the sixth, Kevin Cash, the Rays’ manager, pulled Snell at just 73 pitches. The next batter, Mookie Betts, doubled off Snell’s replacement, reliever Nick Anderson. Then the game unraveled on the Rays, ending with the Dodgers winning 3-1 to take the title. This was all anyone in baseball could talk about.
For months, whenever I called a Nats coach or executive, I started with Cash’s controversial move. It was something of a bellwether for how someone felt about the direction of the sport. Broadly, old-school traditionalists viewed it as everything wrong with the analytics era, which now included the marginalization of the starting pitcher. On the other end of the spectrum, Cash’s defenders hammered the statistical validity of the decision, mostly pointing to the risk of having Snell face the Dodgers’ best hitters a third time. As ever, existing in the gray area wasn’t fashionable.
But in the winter after that World Series, on a call in January 2021, one member of the Nats’ front office made me think beyond the Rays vs. purists debate. Pulling Snell, they argued, wasn’t the most interesting part of the situation. The most interesting part was that, in the biggest moment of the season, Cash could zag from longstanding convention at all — a sign, they reasoned, of a coaching staff and front office being on the exact same page. Cash didn’t have to worry about losing his job, they added. (He remains the Rays’ manager to this day.) And to that end, this person told me, it was the kind of choice that is baked over months — years, even — because that’s what it takes to do something subversive when a title is on the line, no matter how much the numbers might have backed it up.
I was skeptical of the analysis, mostly because, from the outside, it felt impossible to tell the difference between a collaborative game plan and strict orders from Cash’s bosses. And if Cash was simply doing what the front office said, how would job security factor into this specific situation? That felt like a stretch.
But if you take the theory at face value, it does describe an ideal of organization alignment, which is something the Nats’ new leaders talk a lot about. The Rays had seemingly built a culture in which that was an organizational decision, something they would (and could) all live with because they believed in their process.
Six years later, it seems that’s where the Nats are headed, if they’re not already there. That doesn’t mean that, in a similar spot, Butera will make a decision along the same lines as pulling Snell. For one, a handful of rule changes have made it harder for teams to steal the most Rays-y elements of the Rays’ rise (restrictions on defensive shifting, the three-batter minimum rule for relievers, roster limitations, etc.). Plus, in the time since Cash yanked Snell in that Game 6, wonky, analytics-based strategy has become much more mainstream, including in Washington.
But when the Nats leaders stress the importance of top-down alignment — and they do, quite often — I think that kind of unbending trust in the process is what they’re getting at, among other hopes and dreams. Like it or not, Tampa developed a clear identity, an ethos of trying to win on the margins in unorthodox ways. Then, most importantly, they’ve stuck with it, sometimes in the face of loud public criticism. That feels aspirational for any modern operation, especially one with so many Rays-influenced folks in important positions.
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