Will Venable is the new White Sox manager
Chris Getz bucks team tradition, gets the best candidate out there
Pick your phone back up, if you’re reading on mobile, because this is not a Halloween gag or early April Fools’: The White Sox have hired the best candidate available, naming Will Venable as their new manager on Thursday.
Venable, the associate manager under Bruce Bochy in Texas, agreed to the job yesterday, on his 42nd birthday. The esteemed baseball mind was a favored candidate for jobs around baseball just a year ago, until taking himself out of consideration for open jobs due to his satisfaction with the Rangers job.
Somehow, something about the White Sox pitch, or a year passed, changed things, because the nine-year veteran (Padres, Rangers, Dodgers) and son of MLB vet Max Venable has agreed to wade into the quagmire that is the 121-loss White Sox.
With the Yankees’ World Series win on Tuesday, Chicago is prevented from officially announcing Venable until there the day off on Thursday.
Venable has seen time both in the front office and on the field since he retired seven years ago. His first gig was with the Cubs, working under GM Theo Espstein as a special assistant, then coached first base for the club. He took a promotion to bench coach in moving to Boston in 2021, and got another step up as Bochy’s “associate manager” in Texas. Venable’s move to Texas coincided with the 2023 World Series win for the Rangers.
Upon retirement in 2017, he joined the Cubs as a special assistant to Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer, and was named first-base coach later that winter. After three years with the Cubs, he moved to Boston to become the Red Sox’s bench coach. In 2023, he joined Bruce Bochy’s staff as an associate manager in Texas, and picked up a World Series ring for his decision.
Credit GM Chris Getz for spiking the drinks successfully lobbying both pitching director Brian Bannister (who left a cushy gig for forward-thinking San Francisco) and now Venable, who steered clear of the New York Mets and Cleveland Guardians last year and (more plausibly) the Miami Marlins this offseason. For all the criticisms due the accidental GM, these have been the best two moves of his tenure.
Now, if only Getz can translate front-office success to personnel between the lines.
This ends the managerial tenure of popular favorite Grady Sizemore, who will remain with the White Sox. Whether that is as part of Venable’s coaching staff, in the front office, or roaming the minors is as yet unknown. The White Sox remain very impressed with Sizemore’s confidence and mastery of a steep learning curve and regard him as an asset.
Expect a news conference you will be able to hear on the new White Sox network if you have the correct tin cans/string combination. Otherwise, turn on your radio, the sports yakkers will have Venable’s introduction as well.