The Brewers announced today that Doug Melvin is going to “transition into an advisory role” with the team, which is probably the nicest language you can use to fire someone. The Brewers have been in need of a new direction for a while now, and a new front office should help kickstart a rebuild that is already a bit late in getting started.

In terms of potential candidates, Twitter is already offering plenty of speculation.

#Brewers have hired executive search firm Korn Ferry to organize GM search. Will target younger candidates with knowledge of analytics.

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) August 11, 2015

Number of people in the industry think Brewers will look within for next GM–Ray Montgomery is well regarded around MLB.

— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) August 11, 2015

Cooper’s tweet is somewhat reinforced by this follow-up from Tom Haudricourt:

Attanasio made it clear that he considers Craig Counsell the team's manager and GM candidates will be told so.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) August 11, 2015

If you’re committed to Counsell as the manager, and that is not a negotiable point, outside candidates may be less interested in the job, knowing that they not get to pick their own staff. An internal candidate like Montgomery, who worked with Counsell in the front office before he was named manager in May, would probably have less of a problem going with the continuity line of thinking.

If the team does decide to go outside the organization, Jerry Dipoto would probably be one of the more popular names, though given that he just lost a power struggle with an owner over an empowered manager, perhaps this wouldn’t be the kind of spot he’s hoping to land. There are also an army of highly qualified assistant GMs around baseball, many of whom will likely make for excellent GMs when given the opportunity. The Brewers could also go big and aim for Dave Dombrowski, but they’d probably have to make him team president to compete with other offers he’s going to get, so if they’re just looking for a GM, he’ll probably have better options.

Either way, this should lead to some necessary changes in Milwaukee, and perhaps help the team get along with renovating the roster while admitting that the current group is unlikely to contend in the NL Central in the near future.