How did Venable do in first season as White Sox skipper? Just ask him

This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

WASHINGTON -- At the end of a 20-minute 1-on-1 interview with Will Venable on Wednesday in New York, I posed a question to the White Sox skipper producing possibly the best answer amid a long list of straightforward, honest replies.

“Are you a good manager?” I asked Venable, as we sat in the visitors' manager’s office at Yankee Stadium.

Venable leaned back in his chair, laughed and said “No, no, no.” But it wasn’t so much a “no” regarding his ability, but more about not really wanting to be the one making this individual judgement.

“I don’t know if you can say that with the worst record in the American League,” Venable said with a wry smile. “I’m certainly not going to say that. I will say this: I’m better today than I was in Game 1, and [there is] still a long way to go.

“Whatever I am, [160] games into it, I know that I’ve been so well supported by great players, great front office, great ownership. The fans have been great, you guys have been great. My ability to grow and to have a year in which I can make progress, I feel like I’ve been well supported.”

Before taking the managerial reigns, Venable worked as a first-base coach (2018-19) and bench coach (2020) for the Cubs, a bench coach (2021-22) for the Red Sox and an associate manager to Bruce Bochy with the Rangers (2023-24). It was excellent preparation, to say the least.

Venable was the White Sox first choice to take over this position, and he has been everything general manager Chris Getz and the organization could have hoped for when they hired Venable shortly after his 42nd birthday. There were no wide-eyed contention dreams coming into Year 1 with the South Siders.

Not with the White Sox coming off 121 losses in 2024. Not in the earlier stages of a rebuild. The 59 victories represent pretty close to what could have been expected.

But what about 2026? After young players such as Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero, Chase Meidroth, Shane Smith, Grant Taylor, Jordan Leasure and even Miguel Vargas and Brooks Baldwin made their presence felt at the Major League level, while really learning the game, could this supplemented nucleus move into American League Central title contention at some point next season?

“One thing I know about this group, you cannot put limits on them,” Venable said. “As you get to the offseason, you have no idea what that is going to look like. There’s so much variability in development, in how groups come together that I don’t have an answer other than I’m not going to put any limits on this team.

“You look at this year and whatever you want to call this year, there was some successful things. One of the main reasons we can point to anything successful is this group got along with each other. That’s going to be one of the most important things -- can we facilitate this group to come together and connect like they did this year?

“If that’s the case and we are able to do that,” Venable added, “then they can achieve anything they want.”

Players have responded to Venable in his first year at the helm, as well as his staff. Venable has been very impressed by the culture building coming from within this young group, without extreme guidance from the higher-ups.

“They immediately took ownership over how they go about their business, what kind of postgame celebrations look like, what meetings look like. Just a lot of the things that we do, they really just were responsible for and took ownership,” Venable said. “I thought with the young group it was going to be more hands-on kind of culture building. They really were steering that ship the whole year.”

“Will was great,” veteran outfielder Mike Tauchman said. “The messaging was extremely consistent. I thought that the energy was great, and the energy was positive. When you have a group of younger players, there's going to be a lot of teachable moments. And I thought that him and the staff as a whole did a great job of addressing those things.”

This new White Sox culture begins with players rooting for each other, according to Venable. They have high standards for how they prepare and learn from mistakes, showing a resiliency and competitive spirit easily sapped by a team with a 23-57 record entering Friday in games decided by one run (15-35) and two runs (8-22).

It’s not the right time to judge Venable’s overall managerial skills, although the ask brought about excellent insight. Much like the team he’s running, they are going the right way for extended success.