Friend of the White Sox Jake Peavy gets positive vibes from the team

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Jake Peavy is bullish on the White Sox this season. The former Sox right-hander was in camp on Monday at Camelback Ranch in his role as an MLB Network commentator. It’s 30 clubs, 30 camps and the White Sox are high in the rotation as the network crew attacks all 15 Cactus League camps in 15 days.

Peavy said he likes the roster changes on the club and enjoys the spring vibe.

He has friends and former teammates here: manager Will Venable, general manager Chris Getz, and assistant GM Josh Barfield. Peavy played with Venable and Barfield in San Diego before the Padres traded him to the White Sox, where he played with Getz. Geoff Head was the strength and conditioning coach when Peavy finished his career in San Francisco. Head is now in the same role with the Sox.

“I’ve got good sources inside this organization and people I believe in,” Peavy told the Sun-Times. “When you see what they did in the second half, and you add [Munetaka] Murakami and Austin Hayes, if [Andrew] Benintendi bounces back — I don’t know if they can pull off winning the American League Central and beat out Detroit or Cleveland this year, but I can see the makings of a Central champion in the very near future.”

These are heady words. The White Sox have lost in excess of 100 games the past three seasons, including 102 under Venable last year and a record 121 in 2024.

Peavy pitched for the White Sox from 2009 to 2013. He was part of a 2013 trade deadline deal to Boston and won that year’s World Series with the Red Sox over the St. Louis Cardinals. The next midseason he was shipped to the Giants and won the 2014 World Series with them over the Kansas City Royals.

Early in his White Sox tenure in 2010, Peavy had one of the most famous experimental surgeries ever on his right shoulder. He had a detached latissimus dorsi muscle and Chicago orthopedic surgeon Anthony Romo reattached the muscle to the bone via tiny hooks and with a thread akin to the strength of fishing line. He was able to pitch for six more seasons and went 36-29 with a 4.00 ERA in 83 starts for the White Sox.

He was a bulldog, Venable recalled. “When he made a mistake on the mound you could hear him cursing and grunting in the outfield.”

After retiring , Peavy has played guitar and sung in his own band, plus become a personality in his own right on network television. His positive thoughts on the White Sox may come as much from his loyalty to the team and his old friends as from any objectivity.

“I love what they have on both sides of the ball for the foreseeable future,” he said. “You can write that any way you want to, but it’s the truth.”

As far as Venable is concerned, he joined the Padres to play the outfield late in the 2008 season and played on and off with Peavy until the pitcher waived his no-trade clause and was dealt to the White Sox at the 2009 trade deadline.

Venable, in his second season managing the White Sox, was an associate manager under Bruce Bochy with the Texas Rangers and won the 2023 World Series with them over the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was then hired to lead the White Sox back from the wilderness.

“Will just has incredible experience,” Peavy said. “I played with Will. Will was a smart baseball player. I could see him managing when we played together. But then you take all that and you go through the coaching ranks the way he has, that’s what it’s all about. You take what you learned from Boch and other coaches and blend it into your own style.

“He’s an unbelievable communicator. I just think the world of Will.”