As the White Sox rode a substitution-heavy postseason run through the Wild Card Series and into the second round, Will Venable’s decisions started to feel like they’d eventually get graded by somebody outside the room. When the Sox were still making pitching chaos look clever, most of the pushback was about style.
Once they blew a 2-0 lead to the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS, though, the whole thing turned sharper. If the plan works, people argue taste.
If it breaks, they go straight to the manager.
Ben Clemens took the assignment for FanGraphs, and his report card on Venable landed Tuesday with the kind of split that tracks with what I’d been thinking: an A- for pitching usage and a B- for the offense. That lines up with the broad shape of the debate, even if I’m not sure I’d go quite that high on the mound side.
Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor seemed headed for diminishing returns no matter how the games unfolded, and while the alternatives may not have been much better, the White Sox still couldn’t outrun the math of “17 walks over Games 4 and 5.” At some point, even a sound idea runs into execution.
The offensive decisions were easier to question. Venable backed himself into some rough protection choices around Miguel Vargas, especially with Cleveland pitchers clearly hunting around Munetaka Murakami and Andrew Benintendi.
Dave Roberts sticking with Shohei Ohtani this October is a reminder that Venable wasn’t alone in riding name-brand hitters past the point where they were helping, but the result was the same: Stephen Vogt never had to make a tough decision when Vargas stepped in. That was the issue.
Clemens also spent real time on Grant Taylor, and I thought that part of the evaluation was one of the more interesting pieces of the whole thing. I’m still not sure I have the right frame for it.
A four-inning save. Fifty-four pitches in the first game of the playoffs.
Coming in wherever and whenever needed and going until he had nothing left. That’s not a usage pattern with a lot of easy comparisons attached to it, and I’d be nervous trying it without a firm grip on the pitcher’s limits and buy-in.
But Venable apparently had both. It may have looked like overuse, but there was clearly some structure underneath the aggression.
Taylor’s workload would have probably eased off if the Sox had kept advancing, but they played seven postseason games and he appeared in five of them, including two outings of more than two innings. Hard to really hammer the manager for leaning on his best arm that hard, even if it’s not how I’d have done it.
Elsewhere, there was at least one odd little reward for Josh’s move to the Foul Territory network: answering questions from an exasperated A.J. Pierzynski.
Baseball America’s 2026 MiLB attendance numbers across all 120 teams showed the Winston-Salem Dash with the biggest attendance drop in minor league baseball, down 1,012 fans per game, even as they won their first league title since 2003.
And in a separate piece that hit on the melancholy of old ballparks getting replaced, Jim Bulley wrote about Jamsil Stadium, home to both the Doosan Bears and LG Twins, which is being torn down for a 30,000-seat dome. He called it the best baseball environment he’s ever experienced, and his description landed on the same idea that always comes up when a stadium like that disappears: Jamsil was never perfect, but it was home.
It was a concrete-era park built before hospitality suites and corporate boxes took over, and even a corporate event there once meant the Bears taped a large flag to an ordinary office wall. The point was simple.
The place belonged to fans, not corporations. Whether that was the design or just the outcome, it made the stadium beautifully democratic, with most seats offering more or less the same view and a cheap good seat early on.
Which brings it back to the White Sox. All of this is another reason to spend in the offseason. Nothing is guaranteed.
In Other News...
White Sox 2027 Outfield Picture Hinges On Two Big Decisions
The White Sox are already looking ahead to 2027 in the outfield, and the shape of that group may end up looking more familiar than radical. Sam Antonacci, Tristan Peters and Braden Montgomery are part of the internal discussion, while veterans like Randal Grichuk, Andrew Benintendi and Brenton Doyle help define how the next few seasons could line up. Chicagos front office has some flexibility, but it also has to balance near-term stability with the kind of roster churn that usually comes when a club is sorting out its longer-term core.
What makes the picture interesting is that the biggest questions are not about the young names so much as the established ones. The White Sox have to decide how much they want to commit to the current mix, how much room they want to leave for the younger outfielders to emerge, and whether a late-stage roster tweak could be used to address a different need. Even with some changes likely, the sense right now is that the group may stay closer to intact than a full reset would suggest. [Read more 🡒]
Two Former White Sox Are Making October Look Even Worse
The White Sox corner of October looks a little more painful with two familiar faces helping other clubs chase a playoff run. Andrew Vaughn, once expected to be a middle-of-the-order answer in Chicago, is now part of Milwaukees postseason push after a trade in 2025, while Cam Booser has gone from a tough fit on the South Side to a useful bullpen arm for Tampa Bay.
Both have found better footing since leaving Chicago, and both are contributing in the kind of games the White Sox are watching from afar. Vaughns bat has ticked up with the Brewers, and Booser has settled in as a dominant reliever for the Rays, a reminder that sometimes the cleanest change of scenery comes after the messiest stretch at home. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Roster Crunch Could Force A Tough Rotation Decision
After a 2026 season that left the White Sox still searching for more reliable starting pitching, the front office is expected to spend the winter sorting through a roster that suddenly looks a little crowded in a few key places. Chicago has already been linked to the idea of using its depth to address the rotation, and that puts a few familiar names into the conversation as the team weighs how aggressively to pursue upgrades.
Andrew Benintendis place on the roster is one of the more obvious questions, especially with the club considering ways to reshape the payroll and create room for a controllable starter. Billy Carlson could also come up in those talks, even with the No. 81 prospect tag attached to him, because the White Sox have enough infield traffic to at least listen. Brenton Doyles future is less settled than it might seem, too, which is what makes this roster crunch worth watching as the offseason takes shape. [Read more 🡒]