Sources: Cubs set to name Listach as bench coach

The Cubs are set to welcome former big-league infielder Pat Listach back to their organization.

Sources confirmed Monday the Cubs will name the 43-year-old Listach to be manager Mike Quade's bench coach. The move will be announced a day or two after the World Series ends in keeping with Major League Baseball guidelines for making such announcements.

Listach, the 1992 American League Rookie of the Year with the Milwaukee Brewers, worked the previous two seasons as third base coach for the Washington Nationals and their manager, ex-Cubs skipper Jim Riggleman.

His hiring completes the on-field coaching staff. The Cubs also will name a special assistant in the coming days. Listach replaces Alan Trammell, who left to take the bench-coach job for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Special assistant Matt Sinatro, who came aboard with former manager Lou Piniella in 2007, will not be back in 2011.

Listach managed the Cubs' Class AAA Iowa club for part of the 2002 season and again in 2008, when he won Pacific Coast League manager of the year honors for a first-place finish.

He managed at Class AA West Tenn in 2006 and at Class AA Tennessee in 2007 after the Cubs changed Double-A farm clubs. Listach served as Iowa's hitting coach from 2001-05.

While in Washington, he worked with infielders in addition to coaching third base.

Meetings begin:

The Cubs brass and scouts are gathering in Mesa, Ariz., for the team's organization meetings, which take place Tuesday evening through Friday.

General manager Jim Hendry will preside at the meetings, in which the Cubs go over scouting reports from all of the other organizations and try to plot a course for 2011.

One interesting sidebar that may emerge from the meetings is what the Cubs do with some of their young pitchers. Debate likely will center on whether to have young right-hander Andrew Cashner work as a starter next spring or continue as a reliever.

That decision, in turn, may determine whether the Cubs explore such free-agent relievers as Kerry Wood, the former longtime Cub whose contract was not picked up by the New York Yankees.

The Cubs also are getting good reports on right-hander Chris Carpenter in the Arizona Fall League. Carpenter, a starter this year at Tennessee and Iowa, has been working out of the bullpen in the AFL and has hit triple digits on the radar gun, according to Cubs people.

The organizational meetings set the stage for the GM meetings later this month and the winter meetings, next month in Orlando.