For the sixth time in franchise history, the White Sox have the AL Manager of the Year.

Will Venable has joined that club alongside Tony La Russa, Jeff Torborg, Gene Lamont, Jerry Manuel, and Ozzie Guillen, who was their most recent winner in 2005. This comes only a few weeks after winning the Sporting News edition of the award.

Venable, who received 15 of the 30 first-place votes, was selected over the Tampa Bay Rays' Kevin Cash, who has won the award twice. The Boston Red Sox's Chad Tracy finished third. Both runners-up made compelling cases of their own. Cash managed the Rays to the best record in the AL. Meanwhile, Tracy took over midseason before turning around a Red Sox team that was well below .500. They would go on a lengthy winning streak to wrap up a playoff berth.

Nevertheless, Will Venable dragging the White Sox out of a historic multi-year slump stood out among the rest.

Will Venable Brings Home Some Hardware

Will Venable not only snapped the organization's streak of three consecutive 100-loss seasons, but he also led the White Sox to their first postseason spot in five years. He nearly won the AL Central as well, which was stolen in the final weeks by the Cleveland Guardians.

Venable did all of this in only his second season at the helm, as well as with a team that employed one productive rookie after another and didn't get a lot of length from its starting pitchers. Not just any manager would have been able to handle that as well as he did.

As with seemingly all managers these days, there were fans who nitpicked lineups and in-game decisions to the point where they were calling for his job. Those will continue as long as he remains employed because that's just the nature of armchair managers.

But unlike fans who generally prefer process over results, it's the opposite for the voters who decide these awards. All the voters saw with Venable and the White Sox was a 24-game improvement and a playoff spot that even the most optimistic observers couldn't have predicted at the beginning of the season.

Also, much like the White Sox, Venable is a fresh face when it comes to rising through the ranks. Voters tend to award the new kids on the block. In this, Venable literally managed a group of kids and did so masterfully.

Venable was the best candidate on the market when the White Sox hired him, and he has rewarded those expectations. The question now is how he can build on that because he will be the man to lead this core to the next level, assuming it can get there. The way this past season went, there's optimism for just that.