"Early this morning, I was reading about the Nationals' trifecta of relative youngsters: Paul Toboni, their new head of baseball ops, is 35. Newly-hired manager Blake Butera is 33. And now, Toboni has added Ani Kilambi to do the day-to-day stuff as GM, and Kilambi is 31. You add any of those two ages together, and you get, if not the median baseball ops honcho and manager, maybe something pretty close."
"But, it turns out... back in 1914, Roger Peckinpaugh was an interim player-manager for the Yankees at age 23. Plus, some guy named Frank Quilici managed the Twins back in 1972 when he was even younger than Blake Butera will be when managing the Nationals next season. So, anyway, Roger Peckinpaugh! He was pretty good. He had over 40 fWAR in his career. (Hilariously, he won the MVP award in a routine 2ish fWAR season. Oy.)"
The Nationals recently staffed key roles with notably young individuals: Paul Toboni (35) as head of baseball operations, Blake Butera (33) as manager, and Ani Kilambi (31) as GM handling day-to-day duties. Historical precedents include Theo Epstein and Jon Daniels serving as GMs before age 30 under older leadership, and early 20th-century on-field managers such as Roger Peckinpaugh, who was an interim player-manager at 23 and compiled over 40 fWAR. Frank Quilici managed the Twins younger than modern examples. Contemporary player-manager candidates would likely be veteran catchers or experienced backup catchers such as Salvador Pérez or Albert Pujols.
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