How easy would it be to sit here and congratulate the White Sox for shocking the baseball world on Day 1 of the off-season?
The team that lost 121 games managed to hire a fairly well-respected former Major League Baseball player in Will Venable, who happened to be associate manager for a World Series winner just last year.
But let’s be realistic. Venable talked Thursday about how impressed he was by people in the Sox organization. At the same time, this is a low-risk career move. He’ll earn a manager’s salary and add an important title to his resume, at a place where the bar has been set extremely low.
General manager Chris Getz appears to have done a nice job with the selection process, going from an initial list of 60 candidates to 20 interviews to five finalists and finally a new hire. As bad as it was this season, the White Sox needed to hire from outside the organization.
“It was really a no-brainer to take the interview and I’m so glad I did,” Venable said during a Zoom call with reporters. “I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and I can’t wait to go to work.”
Sifting through the 30 minutes of Q&A, there were reasons to feel Venable will be a solid addition to the local sports scene. Whether the White Sox can regain respectability in 2025 is more dependent on players than the California native and former Princeton basketball star in the dugout.
Sox fans should be happy to see Venable has worked in Chicago, even though it happened on the North Side. He started as special assistant to Theo Epstein in 2017, coached first base in 2018 and ’19, then moved over to third in 2020.
Venable talked about staying in Texas last year because none of the opportunities that came his way met the “criteria” establish by him and his wife to move on. The White Sox may well have been the first team to offer a managerial role, but clearly returning to Chicago was a reason he took the job.
In some ways, Venable’s decision feels similar to Craig Counsell wanting to experience life outside of Milwaukee last year.
Another good sign was Venable listing Joe Maddon as one of his role models. You remember Maddon, one of two Chicago managers to win a World Series in during the past 107 years.
“The thing that really sticks out to me there (about Maddon) is just his ability to stay positive,” Venable said. “It didn’t matter what the score of the game was, what time of the day, he just had the same presence about him and that’s something I’ll always admire from him and something that stands out.”
Maddon was also one of the best at thinking outside the box, with his changing lineups and complicated position switches. Maybe in an all-DH world there’s no need to place pitchers in the outfield anymore, but Maddon-style managing would make things interesting as the Sox try to climb out of the basement.
Venable also had a nice thought about Bruce Bochy, who won his fourth World Series title as a manager with the Rangers in 2023.
“Boch is amazing,” Venable said. “The one thing, and I was a direct benefactor of it, was just how inclusive Boch is and thoughtful he is with staff. You know you’re going to be included in conversations, you know your opinion matters. That’s something I want to adopt to my program as well.”
The very next question was about how the White Sox can improve the roster through free agency and Venable deferred to Getz on that topic.
Maybe in the right place and right circumstances, Venable’s opinion will matter. There’s no shortage of work to be done.
