White Sox: Closing the Book on Robin Ventura

The White Sox are ushering in a new era with Rick Renteria replacing Robin Ventura. Ventura was a great player but just didn’t make the transition to the coaching ranks.

The Chicago White Sox will look very different next season. They should have some new players and they will have a new manager. It was no surprise when Robin Ventura resigned from his post after underwhelming seasons. After a promising start to his career, it just went down hill from there. After four consecutive losing seasons, Ventura decided to part ways with the team and leave it in the hands of Rick Renteria.

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Now, it seems this team will be in a better place. Renteria is a great baseball mind and should fit in well with this team. It also helps that he spent last season as their bench coach. For Ventura, he gets to ride off into the sunset. Who knows what he has planned next. Maybe he will return to broadcasting or just stay away from baseball entirely. I would tend to think he may stay away for a while because it never seemed like he was interested in being a manager.

For all the bad, there was some good over the past five seasons. In Ventura’s rookie season as manager, the team went 85-77. That was a team that wasn’t supposed to win but somehow they were able to put it all together. Let’s not also forget how great Chris Sale and Jose Quintana had been. Ventura definitely had a team that could be competitive, he just never got enough out of his players.

Now, we just hope that Renteria can do what he could not, win baseball games. After all, that is what the point of baseball is. Win as many games as you can and make it to the World Series. But we can’t put all the blame for this team’s struggles on Ventura. It was clear from the beginning this team would have some areas of concern, but the front office never did anything to fix that.

However, there are some things a good manager could do to work around that. But Ventura was just not that guy. He’s not the guy that is going to win you extra games because of his tactics on the field. He was more of a manager who would react to a situation than someone who was going to be one step ahead. Guys like Terry Francona and Joe Maddon are thinking two or three steps ahead.

Ventura was just waiting to see what happened, and then hopefully reacting in an appropriate way. But that type of managing won’t lead to victories.. If you’re not winning games, then you’re expendable. Teams will get rid of the manager before they get rid of the players. And that’s what happened in this situation. He simply didn’t win enough games to keep his job. Sure, he resigned, but I think that was the Sox way of not embarrassing him.

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How do we remember Ventura? Honestly, he was one of my favorite players growing up. With that beginning said, I will remember him as the gold glove third baseman for the Sox. Not the failure of a manager he was. I’ll also remember him for hitting a ridiculous amount of grand slams during his career. And most importantly, I will remember him for being a stand-up guy, who always played the game right. And as for his managing? Well, that is just history.