Will Venable named American League Manager of the Year after White Sox playoff run

The Story

Will Venable was named the American League Manager of the Year, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced Tuesday night, after the Chicago White Sox reached the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

Venable received 15 of 30 first-place votes and finished with 111 points in the BBWAA balloting. The other AL finalists were two-time winner Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays and Chad Tracy of the Boston Red Sox.

The White Sox became the first team in MLB history to reach the playoffs after consecutive 100-loss seasons. Under Venable, only the third such instance came after he took over in 2025 and Chicago went 84–78 this year.

In Venable’s debut season in 2025, the White Sox went 60–102 after the team was coming off 121 losses in 2024, a record for the most since 1900. This season, Chicago beat Houston 2–0 in the AL Wild Card Series before losing to Cleveland in a five-game AL Division Series.

Before being 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. He is the first White Sox manager to win the award since Ozzie Guillen in 2005.

The BBWAA also announced the National League Manager of the Year award to Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy, who was in a hospital bed recovering from hip replacement surgery when he did MLB Network interviews before and after the announcement.

Murphy earned the NL award after the Brewers won the NL Central in all three seasons with him as manager and then went on to capture a franchise-record 103 wins in the regular season. Milwaukee swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series and beat Tampa Bay in a five-game World Series.

In the NL balloting, Murphy received 20 of 30 first-place votes and finished with 124 points, with Atlanta’s Walt Weiss second on seven first-place votes and 86 points. The other NL finalist was Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly.