Will Venable is not going to be doing much winning at the beginning of his tenure as Chicago White Sox manager.
He comes to the White Sox with an impressive resume, but even if he had Theo Epstein taking over to run the baseball operations and Joe Maddon on his staff, it would not be enough to take this franchise from 121 losses to winning the AL Central.
Since the front office has acknowledged not much money will be spent in free agency to upgrade the roster, do not expect the team to be much better in 2025.
Since you cannot hold Venable to a win-and-losses standard until 2027 at the earliest, there are six other standards that you should use to measure his job performance...
1) Venable creates a good clubhouse culture that has a winning mentality.
Creating that was an emphasis Venable made in his introductory Zoom call with reporters. It was a boring call and that is a good thing. There were no promises to be ready to kick the team's bleep at 7:10. Just concise and realistic answers.
Being a former big-leaguer, Venable understands that the clubhouse not being toxic or poorly led can help a team win in the margins. It is something I have seen in my days covering baseball.
The Milwaukee Brewers hit rock bottom in 2002, then brought in Ned Yost to manager in 2003. While the Crew lost a lot in 2003 and 2004, he was building a clubhouse that believed they could win.
The Brewers finally got to .500 in 2005 and were competitive in 2007 with a playoff appearance in 2008.
The clubhouse does not have to be a kumbaya fest. You do not want it to splinter and fracture as it did under former manager Pedro Grifol.
2) Have the team prepared to play every game.
The Sox always seem underprepared for every game. Part of that was the lack of resources. Hopefully, Venable's experiences with other winning organizations can convince ownership to invest in the necessary resources to make sure hitters have a game plan against each pitcher, the defense is properly positioned, and pitchers understand how to attack hitters.
If the White Sox are going to lose, and they will, you want it only because they got overmatched (because the roster will be) and not because they helped beat themselves (something the 2024 team did a lot of).