Paul Toboni spent eleven days as the Nationals' president of baseball operations before making his first hire. He reached back to Boston and pulled Devin Pearson, the Red Sox director of amateur scouting, into Washington's front office. The move was announced internally Tuesday morning.
Pearson ran Boston's draft board for the past three years, overseeing a system that delivered Roman Anthony (19th overall, 2022) and Kyle Teel (14th overall, 2023)—both currently ranked in Baseball America's organizational top-five. He joined the Red Sox in 2018 as an area scout covering the Pacific Northwest before ascending to area supervisor and then director. Toboni, who served as Boston's assistant general manager for five seasons before Washington hired him in early May, worked directly above Pearson during the rebuild of Boston's farm system.
The timing matters because the Nationals hold the second overall pick in the June draft, their highest selection since taking Stephen Strasburg first in 2009. Washington's amateur scouting department has cycled through three directors since 2021, creating discontinuity in an organization that once prided itself on draft execution. Pearson inherits a skeleton crew—the Nationals employed six full-time amateur scouts as of Opening Day, roughly half the industry median. Toboni's mandate from ownership is explicit: rebuild organizational depth without a corresponding payroll increase, which means extracting value from the draft and international markets where other teams are merely competent.
Pearson's track record suggests he can price inefficiency. His 2022 board avoided the high-profile college bats most teams chased and instead bet on Anthony's raw tools despite a .191 spring batting average. Anthony hit .278 with a .872 OPS across two minor-league levels last season. Teel, selected a year later, posted a .288 average and drew seventy-one walks in 116 games at High-A and Double-A. Both players are now considered untouchable in trade discussions, which is the definition of draft success: you create assets rivals want but cannot afford.
The Nationals need that same conversion rate. Their farm system ranks twenty-third in Baseball America's latest organizational rankings, weighed down by middling returns from recent drafts and a Latin American program that has produced one everyday player—Juan Soto—in the past eight years. Ownership approved a $4.8 million increase in scouting and development budgets for 2025, conditional on Toboni hiring someone who could justify the spend. Pearson's ability to identify underpriced talent in a draft class—and then defend those choices when they struggle—fits that brief.
The Red Sox will replace Pearson internally, likely promoting Paul Toboni's former deputy who has been handling day-to-day draft prep since Toboni's departure. Boston's front office operates with enough redundancy that one departure does not create chaos. Washington, by contrast, is still installing basic infrastructure. The Nationals have not hired a scouting coordinator, an international scouting director, or a full-time analyst dedicated to amateur evaluation. Pearson will need to build all three functions before June's draft, which gives him forty-one days to assess the current staff, identify gaps, and either promote from within or raid his former colleagues.
Watch for Pearson to bring two to three Boston scouts with him by late May, following the standard thirty-day non-compete most teams enforce. The Nationals will also need to name a new international scouting director before the July 2 signing period, when $6.2 million in bonus pool money must be allocated. Pearson's network in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela is thin—his background is domestic amateur markets—which means Toboni will likely pair him with a Latin America specialist from outside the organization.
The Nationals' ownership has committed to losing ninety-plus games this season while stockpiling draft capital and international slots. Pearson's hiring makes that strategy legible: extract surplus value from eighteen-year-olds who cost $3 million to sign instead of thirty-year-olds who cost $18 million annually. The math works if the talent evaluation does.
The takeaway
Toboni imports Boston's draft architect with **forty-one days** to rebuild Washington's amateur scouting operation before holding the **second overall pick**.
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