Will Venable has a lot on his plate these days. As the new manager of the Chicago White Sox, he is getting to know the organization, meeting with his players, and collaborating with the front office on plans for the offseason.
While putting together his first coaching staff with Chicago, Venable already has one person in mind: Grady Sizemore, who was the White Sox’s interim manager at the end of last season.
“There’ll be a role for him,” Venable said on Friday after donning his new No. 1 Chicago jersey at a press conference at Guaranteed Rate Field. “I think it’s going to be about how to best utilize him and how to best complement his skillset.”
Venable, 42, has never been a big league manager before, and he’s stepping into a challenging rebuilding project with the White Sox. Pedro Grifol was fired in August, and Sizemore took over for the rest of the season, leading the team to a 41-121 record, which set a new post-1900 major league record for most losses in a season.
Before coming to Chicago, Venable was the associate manager for the Texas Rangers for the past two years, helping the team win the 2023 World Series. He left that position last month after agreeing to become the White Sox’s new manager, and so far, things have been going well with his new team.
“There’s so many decisions that go in every day as a general manager,” White Sox GM Chris Getz said. “And what I’ve noticed in this short period of time is I’m comfortable calling Will about any one of those subjects and talking it through.
And that’s what I was looking for. I was looking for a partner in this, and I think it’s a pretty good sign that it’s already as natural as it is.”
Both Venable and Getz have experience as major league players. Venable was an outfielder for nine seasons, playing for San Diego, Texas, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. His father, Max Venable, also had a 12-season career in the majors and later became a minor league manager and coach.
Will Venable has said the challenges he faced as a player — particularly making it to the majors and staying there — have prepared him for the tough challenges that come with his new role.
“I feel like William’s a good communicator,” said Max Venable. “So I feel like that’s a good trait to have. I just feel like, too, that he’s pretty honest, and I feel like players just want someone that’s honest with them.”
Before playing professionally, Will Venable was an all-Ivy League athlete at Princeton, where he played both baseball and basketball while majoring in anthropology. He wrote his college thesis on the cultural differences between baseball in Japan and the United States.
“I think now when you’re talking about communicating with a diverse set of people and what I had to do as a player and communicating with people from different places, it’s absolutely helped me,” he said.
Venable has also worked for the Chicago Cubs and was the bench coach for the Boston Red Sox in 2021 and 2022.
He filled in as the manager for one game in 2021 when Alex Cora was away for graduation, and for six games in 2022 when Cora tested positive for COVID-19. Venable had interviewed for the White Sox’s manager position before they hired Grifol in November 2022.
Now, it’s his turn.
“This is an opportunity to continue to help build and be part of the foundation that’s already being laid here,” Venable said. “And I know that every one of these jobs is challenging.
Every group going into every year has their work cut out for them, and I’m excited for the challenge that this group presents.”
On the same day, the White Sox also announced they had signed right-handed pitcher Justin Dunn to a minor league contract. Dunn will join the team for big league spring training.
