The Chicago White Sox may be closing in on their Mr. Right.
Jesse Rogers of ESPN reported Sunday that the White Sox are getting close to hiring a manager. Rogers adds that Los Angeles Dodgers coach Clayton McCullough and San Diego Padres special assistant AJ Ellis are already out of the running.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post also reports that Detroit Tigers coach George Lombard is out of the running. That leaves ex-Los Angeles Angels manager Phil Nevin, Texas Rangers associate manager Will Venable, and this season’s White Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore as the known candidates for the job, Heyman adds.
It is always possible that another candidate could emerge late and end up getting hired by the White Sox. But Chicago has some good options there if the aforementioned three candidates are their finalists. Nevin had multiple years of managerial experience with the Angels, Venable was a member of the Rangers staff when they won the World Series last year, and Sizemore already got a head start when he took over as White Sox interim manager this past August after the team fired predecessor Pedro Grifol.
There is a good amount of pressure on the White Sox to nail this hire after this year’s calamitous 121-loss campaign (the most in modern MLB history). GM Chris Getz recently had White Sox fans in distress with the comments that he made about the roster plan for next season, so the manager hire might be the only chance for the White Sox to get things right.
