Will Venable wins AL Manager of the Year award after leading White Sox turnaround

Will Venable has won the AL Manager of the Year award after the Chicago White Sox made the playoffs this year following three 100-loss seasons in a row.

The White Sox became the first team in major league history to reach the playoffs after consecutive 100-loss seasons. Only the third of those came under Venable after he took over in 2025. Chicago went 84-78 this year.

Venable got 15 of 30 first-place votes and 111 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America that was conducted before the postseason and announced Tuesday night. The other AL finalists were two-time winner Kevin Cash of the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays, who got 12 first-place votes and 98 points, and Chad Tracy, who took over the Boston Red Sox in April and led them to the playoffs.

Pat Murphy from first-time World Series champion Milwaukee was among the NL finalists along with Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly and Atlanta’s Walt Weiss. Murphy was seeking later Tuesday night to become the first manager in either league to win the award three years in a row. The Brewers had an MLB-high 103 wins during the regular season.

Venable, a former big league outfielder, got his first managerial job when the White Sox were coming off 121 losses in 2024, a record for the most since 1900, after 101 losses the previous season. They went 60-102 in Venable’s debut and followed that this season by making the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

After sweeping Houston in two games on the road in the AL Wild Card Series, they had a 2-0 series lead before losing a five-game AL Division Series to Cleveland.

Before he was hired by the White Sox, Venable was on manager Bruce Bochy’s staff in Texas and was part of the Rangers’ only World Series title in 2023.

Venable is first White Sox manager to win the award since Ozzie Guillen in 2005.

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