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HUGE MLB NEWS: The White Sox Are Reportedly Hiring Will Venable To Manage Them To Greatness In 2025 & Beyond

Christian Petersen. Getty Images.

Let's take a break from Yankee fans jerking off that greasy, disgusting goombah that assaulted Mookie Betts last night and instead talk about the White Sox for a brief moment, as they made national headlines late last night - again - for hiring Will Venable to be the 44th manager in the organization's history:

 

Shout out to my good friend Merk for the scoop. Now let's talk about brass tacks, as I see there are two ways to look at this hire: 

1: The "I have PTSD because Jerry Reinsdorf still owns the Sox and they just lost the most games in the history of a single season of baseball" way of looking at it

I, personally, wasn't overly invested in this offseason's managerial search, as they're now on their 4th manager since the 2020 season started, or 5th if you include Sizemore. After Getz canned Grifol, I assumed they'd go with the cheapest, most insular hire they could make in spite of performing a "league wide" search. That's what led me to thinking it'd be Sizemore the whole time. Cheap, has no other job prospects/leverage to say "no" and the players "liked" him in the interim. 

In years past that would drive me batshit crazy and I'd just say, "they're doing the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING THEY'VE TRIED AND FAILED AT FOR YEARS!!!" but this time it'd be different, because Jerry Reinsdorf has defeated me. I'm at the point where he has broken me so badly that my brain is telling me to just ride out his evil reign as owner and that NOTHING he does between now and the final day that he owns the team matters. 

And I know what you're thinking, perhaps: "BUT THEY WENT WITH WILL VENABLE DAVE YOU IDIOT!!!!!!" and that may be true but they're still gutting payroll as much as possible next year and are staring down the barrel at at LEAST one more - and probably multiple - seasons of losing 100+ games again

So in the end, does this hire really matter considering who the head honcho is? History tells us it doesn't because the owner won't invest in A tier free agents ever, B or C tier free agents in the next few years, the international market, or anything else that would make the White Sox a perennial contender. 

Even if this isn't the way YOU look at this hire, anyone who objectively follows this team shouldn't blame anyone who does look at it this way. 

Unfortunately this is where I fall into at the moment. Hope I'm wrong, though I doubt I am. 


2: The "Chris Getz landed the most expensive, most non-insular hire he possibly could have! Everything is coming up White Sox!" way to look at it:

I wish I were here personally and commend those who are. If you're looking at this hire in a vacuum and take everything I said in #1 and threw it in the trash, this is a great hire on paper for the following reasons: 

- They went outside the organization and against their typical "hire in in house guy that Tony LaRussa told Jerry he likes" hire. This is a beautiful start to what will be a long and painful process. We all know Tony has WAY too much influence on Jerry, especially in the year 2024 and the fact that Jerry granted Getz the autonomy to choose his guy is, again, a really good thing, as Venable was thought to be one of the best managers available on the market.

Oh, and he turned down uncle Stevie and the Mets last year. Not sure why he did that and thought, "let me sink my teeth into the 121 loss White Sox", but he did. That brings me to my last point - 

Because Venable was being choosy on which job he took, this means Getz did something to sell him on the organization's future. The organization obviously blows because of the guy who runs it, so Getz definitely spun the future into a positive. I'd guess Venable was told he'd have a LOT of time to change the culture of the big league clubhouse while they get their shit together in scouting and development down on the farm. 

Nevertheless, whatever it was he said worked and the Sox did something good…

…until they fuck up again. Which they'll do, because that's what they do: fuck things up. They don't deserve the benefit of the doubt AT ALL for at least a few more years. One good managerial hire doesn't change that for me. 

Sorry for the negativity to conclude my piping hot breakdown of the newest White Sox hire, but don't blame me. Blame Jerry Reinsdorf