Now that the World Series has ended, news should start coming fast and furious in regards to trades and managerial hires. Many of these moves were probably more or less completed during the Series but not announced due to fear of the Wrath of Bud (or to put it more simply, there's a moratorium on announcing news like this during the World Series).
The first really big news of the offseason? The Brewers are expected to announce this afternoon that former A's manager Ken Macha is their new manager, taking over for Ned Yost, who was relieved of his duties late last year.
Tom Haudricort is reporting the news for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, mentioning that Macha was a favorite of GM Doug Melvin's last time he did a managerial search in 2003. He also expects Dale Sveum will be back on the staff as a third base coach or bench coach. That's gotta be pretty lame for Sveum, but at least he's not unemployed.
Macha was widely reported to be unpopular with the players in Oakland and the end of his tenure there ended very messily, with him refusing a contract extension from the A's in October of 2005, then accepting the same extension he turned down after his hometown Pirates passed him over during their own managerial search. Many people viewed the move as Macha begging for his job back and it backfired with Macha being fired after 2006 season, even though the A's reached the ALCS that year. There were some nasty things said about Macha after all that, but apparently Melvin's not concerned. I'm sure he'll say more at his press conference this afternoon or tomorrow.
