Another year, another team for Edgar Renteria - he never can settle down long term, can he?

Only one day removed from the World Series, and the shakeups have already begun. In New York, they have settled on a manager, and it is, surprisingly, the right call, with Joe Girardi taking the reigns and being announced this afternoon. The Steinbrenner clan had been leaning towards Don Mattingly, but sanity, and general manager Brian Cashman, clearly won out here. When your options are a catcher with a NL manager of the year award in his one season as a manager under his belt and a first baseman with no managerial experience, the former is clearly the former and not the latter.

Mattingly is of course taking this like a man – no, wait, I take that back. He has taken his ball and gone home. Mattingly has decided that if he cannot be manager, he wants nothing at all to do with the Yankees, and it looks like, like a sad, lost puppy dog, he might follow Joe Torre to Torre’s next job, which looks like it will be with the Dodgers.

Of course, Torre is far from a great fit with the Dodgers. The Dodgers are in a state of flux, with a great core of young players brought in by the previous front office regime and a group of mediocre, aging veterans making big bucks from the current front office vying for control of the team. Jeff Kent went public with the feud as the team was collapsing down the stretch, blaming, of course, the young players, since they were, you know, the ones actually hitting. Oh, wait, that was not Kent’s complaint, but it does get to the point – the veterans think they were disrespected by the kids, but the younger players were doing something that the veterans simply were not, and that was actually earning their paychecks. Torre, unfortunately, often has sided with veterans over rookies in the past, and if that is the case in Los Angeles, the Dodgers will only get worse, not better. This might be a good PR move, but that is all that would be good about it.

Well, that and firing Grady Little, who has proven little other than that he was able to win three games in the ALDS and three games in the ALCS when he should have won a World Series. Little will end up getting another job somewhere in baseball, and he probably is a fine person, but he is not managerial material.

In player news, the Braves and Tigers have made the first big trade of the season, sending Edgar Renteria back to the American League in exchange for Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez. In Atlanta, this means that Yunel Escobar is the everyday shortstop to open the season. In 319 at-bats last year, Escobar hit .326 for the Braves with 5 home runs, 28 RBI, 54 runs scored, and 5 stolen bases. Jurrjens should be given a chance to win a starting rotation spot with the Braves in spring training, and he was 7-5 with a 3.20 ERA in 19 starts with Double-A Erie, striking out 94 and walking 31, before making seven starts with the big league club.

The arrival of Renteria means that Carlos Guillen’s days at shortstop are done, with his position in 2008 likely to be first base. Guillen has not exactly been the poster boy for his HMO of late, so this will keep his bat in the lineup without risking his healthy or having a defensive liability at short. It does mean that Sean Casey’s days in Detroit are done, unless he is willing to be a bench player, and that might not be a bad more for him at this point in his career.

In other news, on Curt Schilling’s blog, 38pitches.com, Schilling thanked the people of Massachusetts for his time here, but he also said that he hopes to return and now is looking for just one more season before he calls it quits. With his contracts demands in terms of years reduced, along with his performance in the postseason, it is difficult to see Schilling leaving Massachusetts, especially considering his investment in the community, ranging from his children living there to his charity work to his software company. Look for a one-year deal to get done here, and reasonably quickly too.

That wraps up today. Oh, wait; we do have one more thing for you – a retraction, of sorts. Yesterday, when we announced the top prospect for each team in the AL East, we said that we were going with Ian Kennedy as the top prospect with the Yankees. Well, we have changed our mind there, and we are going with Joba Chamberlain in the top spot. Want more? Be sure to check them all out over the next ten weeks, with the first Farm Report, the Orioles, coming this Tuesday, after Monday’s Year in Review report on the Orioles. Tomorrow, more offseason news and notes, as we should be able to make the Torre and Girardi signings official by then, and maybe we have some more free agents to talk about.