Nationals assistant GM and worldwide scouting director Johnny DiPuglia has resigned from his place, Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Publish stories. DiPuglia had run the membership’s worldwide scouting operations since 2009, and was promoted to assistant GM and a VP position within the wake of the Nats’ World Collection title in 2019.
Neither DiPuglia or the group publicly commented on the information, although Dougherty notes that “DiPuglia was certainly one of [GM Mike] Rizzo’s closest confidants within the group.” It isn’t recognized if DiPuglia’s standing may be associated to Rizzo’s personal ongoing negotiations a couple of contract extension, although stories from a few weeks in the past recommended that Rizzo and the Nationals have been fairly near a brand new settlement.
DiPuglia’s departure may be a part of Rizzo’s ongoing efforts to overtake the participant growth workers which started in earnest throughout the 2021-22 offseason. Whereas the 2019 championship was the height of a profitable decade for the franchise, the autumn has been precipitous, as Washington is on tempo for its fourth consecutive shedding season. The rebuild has been obvious with the on-field product, and Rizzo has additionally been taking measures to enhance how the Nationals function behind the scenes, significantly within the scouting and growth of its younger prospects. To this finish, the worldwide scouting division has additionally confronted difficulties lately, as Dougherty notes that the Nats haven’t gotten lots of nice returns from latest int’l signings.
It could be that DiPuglia’s resignation previous to the tip of the season offers him extra time to hunt out his subsequent job, and he’ll hit the open market with a powerful resume. As Dougherty put it, DiPuglia “needed to principally begin from scratch” in reviving the Nats’ worldwide division in 2009, and he “has usually been credited with rebuilding the Nationals’ Latin American presence from the ashes.” The signing of Juan Soto was the crown jewel of DiPuglia’s period, as Soto’s instant rise to famous person standing was an enormous cause for Washington’s breakthrough title in 2019. Earlier than coming to the Nationals, DiPuglia’s work because the Pink Sox scouting director for Latin America produced such notable gamers as Xander Bogaerts, Hanley Ramirez, and Anibal Sanchez.
