8:36 pm: Nats also signed with Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye and Dodgers senior vice president Josh Byrnes, Report Rework Report, Ken Rosenthal, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma. Sawdaye has been one of Mike Hazen executives in Arizona for nearly a decade. Byrnes is the head of baseball operations in San Diego and Arizona and has been a member of Andrew Friedman in Los Angeles since 2014. Over the past few years, both Byrnes and Sawdaye have considered it in various front desk searches.
8:28 pm: According to Bob Night Report of USA Today, Nationals interviewed Captain Carter Hawkins, the Cubs while looking for a baseball business leader. Washington dismissed long-time front-end Mike Rizzo in July with manager Dave Martinez.
Assistant General Manager Mike Debartolo has taken over the operations temporarily over the past three months. This includes key decisions for choice Eli Willits Ranked number one in the draft and oversees its relatively quiet trade deadline. Debartolo has been a member of the group for more than a decade and has been one of Rizzo’s top lieutenants for the past six seasons. The Washington Post’s Barry Svrluga suggested tonight that Debartolo might consider a full-time position.
The final call should be only a few weeks away. Svrluga said the Nationals hope to make a decision at the end of the season. It is wise that they don’t want temporary GMs entering the offseason. Nightengale wrote that Hawkins was interviewed last week and called him a “final finalist” for the position. This suggests that ownership has begun to narrow the scope of the field.
Hawkins, 41, has been the general manager of Chicago since the 2021-22 offseason began. It became increasingly common, which made him the second-place decision-maker. Title inflation around the league means few teams now have “general managers” on their front-end hierarchy. This is usually held by the president of Baseball Operations (Jed Hoyer, in the Bears case), with General Motors (GM) being the second commander.
That’s why the Cubs allowed Hawkins to interview the Nationals. If he was to get the job, it would represent promotion, probably the champion of his own baseball business. Before going to Chicago, Hawkins spent more than a decade working at the front desk in Cleveland. He worked there as an assistant GM assistant for five seasons.
