In good news, White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t hire Connie Mack as his new manager.
That’s the only positive I can come up with for a franchise in dire need of positivity. It’s hard to believe that the hiring of Will Venable as the team’s skipper will do much to change the vibe that comes with a 121-loss season. The same owner and front-office people responsible for the worst record in modern Major League Baseball history are the ones who chose Venable from a list of lukewarm candidates.
Nothing against Venable, who might turn out to be a wonderful manager somewhere. But it will take a miracle for that to occur in Chicago, given the Sox’ long-time acquaintance with rock bottom. Venable comes to the South Side from Texas, where he served two years as associate manager to Bruce Bochy. He has been a bench coach for the Red Sox and a coach with the Cubs. He served a year as a special assistant to Cubs president Theo Epstein in 2017. All of it impressive, and all of it probably meaningless.
It would be nice if, just once, the franchise would hire someone who, to borrow from another sport, would be a slam dunk. Four years ago, Reinsdorf tabbed old pal Tony La Russa for a managerial sequel that no one else requested. La Russa was 76 at the time of his hiring and one day shy of 78 when he stepped down because of a heart issue. That bizarre chapter led to the hiring of under-the-radar Pedro Grifol, who was tasked with overseeing the sad results of a rebuild in progress.
What quality, experienced manager would want this job? No one in possession of all his faculties. That’s how you end up with Grifol, and that’s how you end up with Venable. The hiring of La Russa was a warning to qualified managerial candidates: You’re dealing with a strange franchise here. The thought of exhuming Mack was a joke. But something tells me Reinsdorf knows where the Hall of Fame manager is buried, just in case.
There are only 30 manager positions in the big leagues. If you look at it that way, you can understand why Venable would accept the offer to lead the woebegone Sox. But teams discard managers like Cheetos bags, and looked at from that perspective, the question has to be asked: Shouldn’t Venable have waited for something better to come along?
Maybe he’s a fan of pain.
The truest of true believers will say that the Sox have a good farm system. Seasoned Sox observers will roll their eyes at the idea of that. The franchise had one of the best farm systems in baseball six years ago, but few of their top prospects reached their purported potential at the major-league level. Injuries brought down Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert Jr. If anyone tells you that the good times are right around the corner, know that these are the White Sox and that the corner could be miles away.
The Sox didn’t just have a historically bad 2024. They lost 101 games in 2023, and if you add those two seasons together … well, don’t. Spare yourself more suffering. Just know that those two miserable years don’t necessarily point to something good ahead. They point to a franchise that went the rebuild route and lost control somewhere along the way. Or everywhere along the way.
Chicago’s dream is that so much baseball anguish will cause the 88-year-old Reinsdorf to bow out. A recent report said that he’s “open” to the idea of selling the Sox to a group led by former major-league pitcher Dave Stewart. I’ll hold to my contention that Reinsdorf, having felt the business end of fan and media rage for years, is driven by spite now. What’s the best way he can stick it to his enemies? By not selling the team. Or, better, by coming up with a story that he’s open to selling when, in fact, it would take a bolt cutter to loosen his grip on the franchise.
I look forward to hearing Venable’s explanation for why he took the job and his vision for the 2025 season and beyond. The best salesman in the world couldn’t convince a beat-up fan base that things are about to change for the better. It will be Venable’s job to convince the masses that he’s the man to do the impossible.
Good luck with that.