Nationals Land McGowan To Lead Scouting
So the Washington Nationals made a move. It’s a front-office shuffle, the kind of press release that usually gets buried under box scores and injury reports, but this one feels different. The Nationals hired Danny McGowan to be their new Director of Amateur Scouting, poaching him from the perpetually smart Milwaukee Brewers after he cut his teeth in the Tampa Bay Rays’ talent factory.
This isn’t just a new name on the masthead. This is a statement.
For years, the Nationals’ scouting philosophy has felt anchored to the gut instincts of General Manager Mike Rizzo, a man who built a World Series winner on the back of can’t-miss prospects and shrewd veteran acquisitions. But the well has run dry. The farm system, outside of the high-octane talents of Dylan Crews and James Wood, lacks the kind of depth that builds a sustainable winner. The organization needed a new approach.
Enter Danny McGowan. You don’t spend time in the Tampa Bay and Milwaukee ecosystems without learning how to identify and project talent with a different set of tools. These aren’t teams that can afford to miss. They operate on the margins, finding market inefficiencies and turning unheralded teenagers with high spin rates or unusual athletic markers into big-league contributors. They deploy data not to replace scouts, but to empower them.
“We are very excited to bring Danny aboard,” Mike Rizzo said in a statement released by the team. “His track record of success with two of the most-respected organizations in baseball speaks for itself.”
And Rizzo is right about that track record. The Rays model is the envy of baseball: build a deep, versatile roster through a constant churn of young, controllable talent. The Brewers have followed a similar path, consistently competing in the NL Central despite a payroll that rarely cracks the top half of the league. McGowan was a part of that machinery. He understands how to build the engine, not just how to pick the shiniest car on the lot.
The challenge for McGowan is enormous. He isn’t just taking over a department; he’s being asked to help rewire an organizational mindset. The Nationals have to get better at finding value on Day 2 and Day 3 of the MLB Draft. They need to identify the pop-up arms in college and the projectable athletes in high school that other teams miss. It’s about increasing the throughput of legitimate prospects into a system that has felt starved for them.
But let’s be clear. This hire puts the pressure squarely back on Mike Rizzo. Bringing in a guy like McGowan is an admission that the old way wasn’t working well enough. Now, Rizzo has to integrate McGowan’s modern approach with his own. The two philosophies can’t exist in silos. The data has to inform the live looks, and the live looks have to provide context for the data. It’s a delicate balance, one that successful organizations have mastered and struggling ones constantly fight over.
Rizzo praised McGowan for his “leadership, communication and ability to blend all facets of the scouting and player evaluation process,” which sounds like a general manager who knows he needs a new integrator. It’s a recognition that the process of scouting has scaled beyond what one person’s eyes and instincts can manage effectively.
The success of this move won’t be judged next season. It won’t even be judged by the Nationals’ 2025 draft class. It will be judged in 2028, when we see if the lower levels of the minor leagues are stocked with interesting players, if the Nationals have more trade chips, and if the big-league club has a steady stream of reinforcements coming from within.
McGowan’s last role, per the team’s release, was as the Brewers’ Domestic Scouting Supervisor. Now he has the whole amateur operation. It’s a big jump. The Nationals are betting he’s ready for it.
