Nothing can prepare you for managing the White Sox, a team that last season — stop me if you’ve heard this — set the modern era Major League Baseball record for losses, with 121. But Will Venable, the team’s new manager, may be as ready as anyone to help this franchise reverse course. The former outfielder (he played nine seasons in the majors, mostly with the Padres) and Princeton grad (where basketball was his primary sport) is no stranger to Chicago: He was a Cubs coach from 2018 through 2020. For the past two seasons, he was second in command for the Texas Rangers, including for their 2023 World Series title.

He grew up in an athletic family. His dad, Max, played in the majors and internationally before becoming a minor-league coach. For good measure, Will’s younger brother, Winston, played for the Bears in his one NFL season.

Last season — and this is a big understatement — was a tough one for the White Sox. Beyond getting the chance to manage for the first time, what makes you excited about this particular job?

There’s my history with Chicago and my family’s love for Chicago. I don’t think there’s a better place to be in the summer. And playing the White Sox last summer — obviously, the wins weren’t there, but I recognized a group that went out and continued to compete in the face of adversity. Then going through the interview process, getting to understand not just [general manager] Chris Getz’s vision but the foundational pieces that were important to him, I was really excited that he called to offer me the job.

For the players from last year’s team who are still around, how much do you want them to forget what happened? Or do you want them to hold on to that?

It depends on where it gets you. Certainly there is a desire to move on, but a lot of these guys are using it as motivation to make sure it doesn’t happen again. These are prideful guys, they’re proud of the logo. And the thing that changes the narrative the quickest is winning baseball games.

You majored in anthropology at Princeton. Did studying how people from various cultures behave help inform how you approach coaching and deal with players?

One hundred percent. And not just that — my experience as a kid with my dad playing and coaching took us all over the world. To be able to immerse yourself in different cultures was awesome growing up, and then I got to study and think about that on a deeper level in college. In baseball, you walk into a locker room with guys from every part of the world, and we all have to figure out how to communicate. It helps to understand that people have different perspectives and different needs.

One place you spent time growing up is Japan, where your dad played. What is the Japanese baseball experience like?

My dad played in Japan when I was in fourth and fifth grade. It was amazing. Very passionate fans, very, very loud in those ballparks. And I actually got to play Little League there, which was a very cool part of my life. The coach would pick me up and we’d be practicing all day long, playing games, doing drills. It’s no wonder that Japanese players come here and are really good players and fundamentally sound.

As global and diverse as Major League Baseball is now, the number of African American players is way down from what it once was. Is that personal for you?

It is. Certainly I understand what it means broadly for the game — and hope that’s not the same narrative five or 10 years from now. But also, you know, my dad was a coach in the minor leagues for 20 years and never got the opportunity to coach in the majors. He coached me in the minors, and I know what his skill set is. He’s every bit of a major-league coach. And so I take that experience into this opportunity.

Did you feel pressure growing up to do well in baseball because of your dad? Or did your dad apply pressure on you?

I don’t know that you could have had less pressure on a kid than I had. I think that helped me in my career. Going into my senior year of high school, I was really committed to just playing basketball, and I thought to be the best basketball player, I couldn’t also play baseball. That was an easy three-minute conversation with my dad. He said, “OK, how can you be the best basketball player that you want to be?”

What was winning the World Series like? It’s been a while here.

It’s one of those things that when you’re in it, it’s exhausting and draining. I couldn’t even imagine, as a player, continuing to play that deep into the season. We [the coaches] reflected on it a lot, and everyone had the same response: This is a great experience looking back, but it wasn’t that fun going through it.

Do you have favorite Chicago restaurants from your time coaching with the Cubs?

It was local spots in, like, Lincoln Park. And then it was the COVID season and that summer where you couldn’t go out to eat. So then it was really about just getting on a Divvy bike and going down to the lake and sitting by the water and just enjoying the lake. Now, with the kids, we’re spending less time doing the mom-and-dad-going-out-to-dinner. Our pool of restaurants has changed a bit. It might be more American Girl Cafe.

You have three young daughters. Do your daughters understand what you do?

They get it a little bit. The last couple years in Texas when we tried to explain what my job is, my wife came up with that [Rangers manager Bruce] Bochy was like Batman and I was Robin. And so when we were describing this new job, we told them that I’m, you know, like Batman.

Farm Report

The good news for Sox fans? Help is on the way. ESPN ranks the team’s minor-league system No. 2 in baseball. Here are three prospects to be (cautiously) excited about.

Noah Schultz

The 6-foot-9 hard-throwing lefty pitcher, who was born in Naperville and played at Oswego East High School, is already drawing comparisons to Randy Johnson — though, to our knowledge, he’s yet to kill a bird with one of his fastballs. Schultz, the No. 16–rated prospect in baseball, played most of last season for the Double-A Birmingham Barons, where he was named Southern League Pitcher of the Year. If the Sox need pitching help at some point this season — and let’s face it, they will — expect the 21-year-old Schultz to get called up.

Hagen Smith

You can never have too much good pitching — particularly good lefty pitching. And the Sox are stocking up. Drafted fifth overall in 2024, Smith, 21, pitched for the University of Arkansas for the past three seasons, including a junior year when he posted gaudy numbers: a 2.04 ERA and 161 strikeouts in just 84 innings. White Sox GM Chris Getz has said that Smith, too, may wind up in Chicago in the “very near future.”

Kyle Teel

If trading Garrett Crochet, the team’s best starting pitcher last year, to the Red Sox is going to pan out, a lot rides on Teel. Considered the most promising of the four prospects the White Sox got in return, the 23-year-old catcher was drafted out of the University of Virginia in 2023, after being named Atlantic Coast Conference Baseball Player of the Year. Last season, his first full one in the minors, he showed he could hit for average on the pro level while providing a little power.

Photography: (prospects) Chicago White Sox