According to financial audits, the Cubs A team has lost upwards of $2M over the last four seasons. There is some question about the team's long term sustainability.

There is a version of the story on ESPN.com

AAA Iowa
Dave Bialas; Manager, Mike Mason; Pitching Coach; Dave Keller; Hitting Coach

AA Tennessee
Buddy Bailey; Manager, Jeff Fassero; Pitching Coach, Mariano Duncan; Hitting Coach

A Daytona
Brian Harper; Manager, Marty Mason; Pitching Coach, Desi Wilson, Hitting Coach

A Peoria
Casey Kopitzke; Manager, Tom Pratt; Pitching Coach, Barbaro Garbey; Hitting Coach

A Boise
Mark Johnson; Manager, David Rosario; Pitching Coach

Mesa
Bobby Mitchelll Manager, Frank Castillo; Pitching Coach, Jason Dubois; Hitting Coach

Dominican squads detailed in the article. The Cubs also announced their coordinators, too.

One rumor via Bruce Miles on Twitter has Bill Buckner possibly serving as the batting coach for Boise.

Buried amidst a story focusing on Carlos Zambrano was this note:

"Cubs manager Dale Sveum is looking to bring in longtime Tony La Russa crony Dave McKay as a coach"

Nothing beyond that, but for those who feel that, thus far, the coaching staff assembled by Sveum lacks experience, McKay would counter that. McKay coached 1B for the past 26 years for Tony LaRussa, first in Oakland and then in St. Louis.

McKay's Bio on the Cardinals Website

This according to Paul Sullivan, by way of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Bosio was named Brewers AAA pitching coach, however Sveum wants him as his pitching coach and the Cubs have asked the Brewers permission to speak to Bosio about the job.

Also, if Craig Counsell decides to retire, Sveum is interested in having him join his staff.

According to the Sun Times, Sveum has made his first few coaching staff moves. Rudy Jaramillo will remain on as hitting coach. Bench coach Pat Listach and bullpen coach Lester Strode, both of whom are under contract are also expected to be asked back. I'd imagine that Strode will remain bullpen coach while Listach could be moved to 3B or 1B coach. Base coaches Bobby Dernier and Ivan DeJesus have been told that they won't be returning.

It also appears as if no decision has been made on pitching coach Mark Riggins. He and Sveum spoke this weekend and are expected to speak again soon. In an interview that Sveum had on Friday with WSCR, Sveum said that he had a list of 5 or 6 possible pitching coach candidates, so the chances of Riggins not returning as pitching coach appear high.

Just reported on 670 AM, the Score. Not Sandy Alomar Jr... Not Dave Martinez. The Sox have hired Robin Ventura to replace Ozzie Guillen. Ventura has been working as a special assistant to Buddy Bell, White Sox director of player development.

Needless to say, this will create quite a bit of discussion as this was not a guy who was seemingly on the radar.

As soon as tomorrow (Friday 9/30). according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. The team isn't firing him, however they are not expecting to pick up the 2012 and 2013 options on his contract.

Obviously this will be further fodder for the Cubs current situation, with the possible firing of Quade that may accompany the GM change.

IMO, the bottom line is that the Cubs need to allow their new GM to hire a manager, whether its Francona or someone else. I also hope that Ricketts doesn't rush the GM hiring, something that I see as much more important than the field manager.

According to a few tweets by Ken Rosenthal...Braun has received a five year extension between 2016-2020 for $105M.

Its hard to imagine the Brewers allocating $20M to Braun if they also intend to give Fielder a big contract.

According to Bruce Levine of ESPN Chicago, there are four candidates for the radio color job; Gary Matthews, Keith Moreland, Dave Otto and Doug Glanville. I caught a bit of Levine on the radio this morning mentioning the four, while also lobbying for the idea of having a 2nd PBP person and no color commentator. I like the idea, but again Levine touted Judd Sirott, who he feels is an excellent broadcaster. I'd love Bruce to find others who agree with him.

The Trib mentioned the above list minus Matthews.

A few stories here. The first from Chicagosports.com says that Grace and Sutcliffe are unlikely to join the WGN radio booth. Grace was described as "doubtful" and Sutcliffe "questionable".

Bruce Levine's Blog on ESPN Chicago says that both Sutcliffe and Dan Plesac are out of the mix completely. Sutcliffe is rumored to be on the verge of signing a new contract with ESPN to broadcast 40 games and Plesac remains with MLB Network.

No post on this yet... This year's inductees will be Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven. Barry Larkin fell short, recieving 62% of the vote. The much discussed Rafael Palmiero only recieved 11%.

Not a surprise as Collins had been the rumored front runner for the last week or so. It will be interesting to see how the Mets fans respond to the first major decision of the Sandy Alderson era in NY. I can't imagine that very many of them will be terribly excited about this.

Perhaps by the end of the day the entire NL Central will be looking for new managers, save the Reds.

Someone needs to tell Hendry and Ricketts to get on the same page as it makes everyone look foolish when Ricketts says he wants a manager who gets Cubs history, only to have Hendry interview this guy. Maybe his season playing for the Sox qualifies.

Included in the game day press notes was a fake press release ripping Jim Hendry. The release touted a so called book written by Jim Hendry titled "How to Finish Near Last Place with the Highest Payroll in the League."

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Definitely humor in this but pretty unprofessional coming from another major league team.

Of course, Burrell was one of the big names discussed in a potential deal for Milton Bradley before he was traded for Carlos Silva. Burrell was hitting .202/.292/.333 with two HRs and 13 RBIs for the Rays. The Rays did this to make room for Hank Blalock, who has been hitting very well at AAA and had some out clauses in his contract if the Rays didn't bring him up and other teams were interested.

Signed by the Cards to a minor league contract. Knowing TLR's love for Miles, there is a good chance that he'll be on the active roster by the time the Cards come to Wrigley in July.

Tweeted by Ken Rosenthal... Looper threw for the Cubs today and is willing to be flexible if the Cubs are interested.

Scheduled to open June 11th, construction on the 4,000 seat ballpark has yet to begin. The city of Zion, where the ballpark is to be build, has not yet paid for the land. Some of that money is to come from the state, but the mayor of Zion says that they have yet to receive said money.

For those of you not familiar with the northern suburbs of Chicago, Zion is far north, more or less on the Illinois-Wisconsin border.

Patterson opted to leave the Mariners when the M's decided to give their back-up OF position to Eric Byrnes. Patterson batted .216 on the spring with two HRs.

I can't see anyone giving him a major league job after that spring, so it begs the question why not stick with the Mariners and play the season for their AAA team? Perhaps Patterson is going to need to head over seas if he wants to establish himself as a full time player and make some decent money.

This isn't intended to be a "pile on David Kaplan" post, but WGN has decided to replace him and Sports Central after a 28 year run. Starting April 12th the sports show is no longer and Kaplan will be reassigned to other station duties. Amongst those duties will be his role as host of an expanded Cubs post-game show. No word on what this means for BCB favorite Jim Memolo.

I am mixed on Kaplan, but I will say that in the middle of the winter, it was nice to be able to turn on 720 from time to time and hear some Cubs talk.

This as a result of the 2009 playoff blown calls.

While he's been fired by TBS, he has been hired by Fox Sports South and Sports South and will call about 105 games for the Braves.

It looks like former Cubs manager will have the interim tag removed and remain at the helm of the Washington Nationals. Congrats to Riggs who, IMO, did a solid job as Cubs manager.

Details in the article. Cubs want the 2014 All-Star game at Wrigley. Interesting point was that the article mentioned that by 2014 the team expects to have spent $200-300M on Wrigley renovations.

An official press conference is expected later today. Wedge and his coaches will guide the team for the remainder of the season.

It seems odd to me to fire a manager yet have him stick around and manage for a few more games. Either let someone else manage for the remainder of the season or wait on the announcement for a week. With firings already in Houston and Cleveland, along with Jim Riggleman managing on an interim basis in Washington D.C., this could be a heavy off season for managerial moves.

The Cubs are expected to announce that they will broadcast 20 games in Spanish. The games will be on WRTO-AM 1200.