As the White Sox were on pace to be the worst team in major league history, it was only a time before they fired Pedro Grifol. In doing so, Chris Getz started the process of making the White Sox his team, as he was not the general manager when Grifol was hired.
Since the firing of Pedro Grifol, Chris Getz and the White Sox have fired a ton of people who were involved in player evaluation, as they have essentially cleared house in the scouting department. They revamped their international scouting and their regional scouting, as they fired many of their scouts. They also have made many changes to their analytics department, signaling a new era of the White Sox under Chris Getz.
Now, the next step is hiring the right manager for the job, and it appears the White Sox are close to doing so. They have begun the process of eliminating candidates, and now there are just a few names left.
According to Chuck Garfien, after a string of names were taken out of consideration for the job, there are four candidates left. Will Venable, Phil Nevin, Grady Sizemore, and Craig Albernaz.
White Sox fans are familiar with Grady Sizemore, as he was the interim manager to the end the year. We did a deep dive into Will Venable earlier, but fans may not be as familiar with Phil Nevin. Let’s take a look at Nevin’s resume at this point in his career.
Like Sizemore and Venable, Phil Nevin had a successful MLB career. Nevin played in 12 major league seasons, for seven different teams, most notably the San Diego Padres. Nevin also had stops with the Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, Los Angles Angles, and the Houston Astros.
Nevin hit over 200 homeruns in his career, which is no small feat. He also accumulated just under 16 WAR, and was named as an all-star in 2001. After Nevin retired, he managed a few minor league teams before transitioning to the major leagues.
He managed in the Detroit Tigers farm system, where he coached their AA and their AAA affiliate.
After a few seasons, Nevin moved to the Diamondbacks organization, where he was the manager of their AAA team, the Reno Aces.
After his stint in the minor leagues, Nevin served in a role for the San Francisco Giants major league team before moving to the New York Yankees as their third base coach. He would coach with the Yankees for a few years before moving to a role with the Los Angeles Angels.
Halfway through 2022, Nevin was announced as the Angels interim manager after the team dismissed Joe Maddon. To finish off the season, Nevin had a 46-60 record with the team.
The Angels announced that Nevin would remain the manager for the 2023 season, where he lead the Angels to a 73-89 record, missing the playoffs in both seasons. Nevin did not return for the 2024 season and did not hold any coaching positions.
Nevin has not had much success as a MLB manager, as we have a simple size to see what he can do as a team’s skipper. However, he is still in the running and there is a good chance that he is the manager that the origination chooses to lead the team in this new era of White Sox baseball.
