2 candidates to love, 1 that's worrisome as Chicago White Sox manager finalists reportedly revealed

It was hard to tell who was the leading candidate to be the next Chicago White Sox skipper, but an MLB insider has reported as to who the three finalists are.

New York Post and Audacy Radio baseball insider Jon Heyman reports the team has narrowed the field down to Detroit Tigers bench coach George Lombard, Texas Rangers associate manager Will Venable, and former Los Angeles Angels manager Phil Nevin.

He also reported the Sox did consider Buck Showalter, a former four-time Manager of the Year winner. However, naming Showalter would be bad timing as he does his best work with established rosters. He was awful with the Baltimore Orioles toward the end of his tenure as the organization began a rebuild.

Experience would be nice to have, but the Sox are at the early stages of one of the biggest rebuilds in baseball history. That is why the club should try to get a manager that gets the franchise from rebuild to champion.

Hiring Phil Nevin would be a terrible choice for the White Sox to accomplish going from rock bottom to the promised land.

Nevin brings two desired traits in that he is a former big-league player and has managing experience. Otherwise, he would be a terrible hire as his tenure with the Angels was not very successful despite having Shohei Ohtani in the lineup.

To be fair, Nevin had to navigate a front office and an owner who was awful at putting a supporting cast around Ohtani. It did not help that Mike Trout kept getting hurt too.

Dealing with dysfunction is something he has experience in, and the White Sox are even more dysfunctional than the Angels.

His hiring would only contribute to the speculation that Sox former manager and now team advisor is in charge of the White Sox. That would be just another example of a franchise that cannot operate under its stated chain of command as general manager Chris Getz is supposed to be in charge. Getz might not be qualified, but the hiring should be his, not a man who proved the game has passed him by.

Nevin has strong ties to La Russa back when both were a part of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization.

Nevin being named the next skipper would likely mean that La Russa made the hire. Tony can claim he is not in charge, but his deep ties to owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his glowing review of Nevin would make it easy to conclude that La Russa is the shadow GM.

Also, Heyman made sure to add in his report that Venable is a candidate Getz likes, you know, the team's actual general manager. Lombard also seems like a candidate who would be more in alignment with what Getz wants to accomplish as he is trying to change how things are run on 35th and Shields.

If Getz is supposed to be in charge, then this hire has to be free of any possibility that Tony made the hire, especially since there is a lot to like about the process the team is using to find the next manager. The last thing this franchise needs is another hijacking in naming the next manager.

Phil would also be a poor hire according to Locked on Angels co-hosts Mike and Jon Frisch who shared these nuggets with me.

This is how Mike described Phil Nevin's tenure as the Angels manager...

Phil was never "the guy" in Anaheim. He was a holdover that held the team together after Madden was fired and retained for 2023 for a run at the playoffs. Due to this, the Halos GM and Nevin didn't really have a plan or strategy, which made things difficult in 2023 and hard to evaluate. Overall, Nevin is a "hard-nosed" manager with an old-school kind of philosophy. His way of teaching is soft, soft, and then angry. That's part of the reason the Halos went to Ron Washington. We needed a teacher who would develop our young core. Not sure that's Nevin. He seems to be a better fit for a "ready to win now" team.

John added his thoughts on Nevin...

Nevin would've been the manager of the Angels had Arte Moreno not put the Angels on the market and then take them off. That messed up any kind of plan they may have had. We believe the thinking was, "Well if a new owner wants to come in and make changes, it wouldn't make sense for us to hire a manager for the next 3-5 years," and that's how we view Nevin getting the job. In addition, I think that Nevin lost control of the circus that was the Halos last year: Rendon being injured and avoiding the media ("No Habla Inglés"), Shohei media attention, Mike Trout being hurt, etc. The vibes seemed pretty bad in the locker room. With everything that the White Sox are going through right now, I'm not sure Nevin is the guy to handle a situation like that. 

This does not sound like a skipper who will help develop the young players the team plans to give a big-league opportunity nor bring harmony to the clubhouse that had plenty of issues under former manager Pedro Grifol.

George Lombard would be an excellent choice too.

Lombard nearly got the Detroit Tigers managing job back in the 2020 hiring cycle. It instead went to A.J. Hinch, who was only available after Reinsdorf hijacked the Sox manager search and hired La Russa.

The Tigers brass thought so much of Lombard that they asked Hinch to add George to his staff. Lombard has become a trusted coach for one of the best skippers in the game.

The players love him, and he has helped develop players such as Riley Greene into good ballplayers.

“We have one of the best coaches in baseball,” Hinch said. “George Lombard, head and shoulders above a lot of coaches in the league in my eye. … When and if Riley Greene gets here, having George be the first outfield coach in his big-league career is gonna be really good for him.”

The Sox have always been a terrible baserunning team and Lombard could fix that as he has been in charge of the Tigers' attack. He is known as a detailed coach with his work on the Tigers' outfield.

He did make it to the show even though his career lasted 144 games. He has worked in player development roles for the Atlanta Braves and Red Sox before heading to the Los Angeles Dodgers to be their first base coach.

Lombard would come from a division rival and the last time the Sox did that; it was a disaster. However, Lombard played in the big leagues whereas Grifol did not. George has a more diverse coaching background than Pedro.

If you get someone with ties to the Dodgers and A.J. Hinch, you are likely to avoid getting another manager in over his head like Pedro Grifol.

One other reported leading candidate is current Dodgers' first base coach Clayton McCullough who replaced Lombard in that role.

You have to wonder if McCullough is among the finalists, as Bruce Levine is a local reporter while Heyman is a national one. Even if McCullough is a finalist, Venable and Lombard have better credentials.

However, McCullough would be a better hire than Nevin as at least those three would eliminate any sense of dysfunction in the front office.