UPDATE: With Thursday being a World Series gameday, it was assumed that there would not be an OFFICIAL announcement from MLB in regards to a Theo deal until Friday.

David Kaplan addressed that thinking on Twitter:

I've been working phones non-stop and latest confirms what I reported earlier. Deal is basically done. Word should leak tmrw +press conf Fri

Still need commissioners blessing to make announcement on Fri. That is not expected to be an issue.

So, it appears that we will know about a deal being done(which is all we care about) by Thursday, but there will probably not be an official announcement from MLB until Friday.

David Kaplan is hearing from two "excellent" sources that it appears the Cubs and Red Sox have agreed on compensation for Theo Epstein, and that the deal will be announced tomorrow:

@thekapman: I just spoke with two excellent sources on Epstein negotiations and it appears deal is basically done with announcement of agreement tmrw.

There's been reports throughout the day from various sources that talks are progressing and that a deal could be announced tomorrow, but this is the first report that makes things sound pretty much finalized. Kaplan's sources are usually very accurate when it comes to the Cubs as well.

Additionally, it's sounding more and more likely that the Cubs want Padres' general manager Jed Hoyer to be the Cubs' general manager, with Theo serving as the President of Baseball Operations, as we informed you about last night.

So if the Theo deal is announced tomorrow, the attention will then be turned to working out a Hoyer deal with the Padres, as Hoyer's contract with the Padres goes through 2013. It is believed that a deal with the Padres would be much easier to work out due to Tom Ricketts having a tremendous relationship with Jeff Moorad, the Padres' CEO.

We'll keep you updated.

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