The Nationals are hiring Desmond McGowan to lead their amateur scouting department, according to a report from Joe Doyle of Over-Slot Baseball. McGowan’s title will be director of amateur acquisitions.
McGowan got his start in baseball with the Yankees as an analytics associate in 2019 before jumping to the Mets as an analyst in 2021. He rose through the ranks across five years in the Mets front office and was promoted to manager of data science earlier this year. McGowan’s work with the club was primarily focused on the draft, and he’ll remain in a similar role with the Nationals as he takes over his new club’s amateur scouting apparatus.
The hire continues an offseason that has been focused on overhauling the Nationals’ front office and coaching staffs after Paul Toboni and Blake Butera were brought in to replace Mike Rizzo as head of baseball operations and Dave Martinez as manager, respectively. Butera has made a number of additions to the coaching staff in the weeks since his hire, while Toboni has retained interim GM Mike DeBartolo in an assistant GM role while adding former Pirates director of amateur scouting Justin Horwitz to the organization as an assistant GM as well.
The Nationals’ focus on bringing in front office talent with a history in scouting continues with the hiring of McGowan. Toboni himself, of course, began his career with the Red Sox as an area scout before ascending the ranks to become an assistant GM during his time with Boston. That his front office hires to this point have reflected that experience is hardly a surprise, particularly given the fact that the Nationals remain entrenched in a lengthy rebuild that began back in 2021. While James Wood has emerged as a core piece of the future and some other players have shown promise, even controllable pieces like MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams remain heavily speculated upon as trade candidates with no end to the club’s rebuilding phase in sight.
That makes strong scouting, drafting, and development decisions over the next few years a must as the club looks to dig itself out of the hole it’s currently in. Bringing in minds like Toboni, Horwitz, and now McGowan should assist in that effort to beef up the scouting credentials of the Nationals’ front office, and the hope is surely to build out a robust farm system around top prospects Eli Willits, Travis Sykora, and Jarlin Susana, the latter two of whom could theoretically make their MLB debuts at some point during the 2026 campaign. That’s particularly important given that previous high-end draft picks by the Nationals under Rizzo haven’t always worked out in recent years. Dylan Crews was selected second overall in 2023 and certainly has a great deal of potential, but he’s yet to prove himself as even a league average hitter in the majors. Elijah Green, who the club selected fifth overall in 2022, is an even bigger question mark as he’s struggled to hit even in the lower minors and has not yet reached the Double-A level.