Any Bote but Madrigal will do
You know a player is bad when his team would rather have David Bote than him.



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The Cubs are officially out of ideas. The good news is that they finally cut the cord on Nick Madrigal1 and while there was much rejoicing at the long overdue move, they Cubbed it up by recalling David Bote. I honestly thought we were done with that dumbass, but I guess not.
Is Bote a better player than Madrigal? Yes. Is he more useful than Madrigal on this current roster. Yes. Is David Bote a good baseball player? No. While he had a couple of really fun, really cool moments in the early parts of his Cubs career, he eventually settled into a mistake prone, injury prone, strikeout prone utility player who couldn’t handle short, wasn’t great at second and will only seem competent at third in this go-round because Christopher Morel is in the 1st percentile (the opposite of good) on defense there, and Nick Madrigal was in the second percentile.
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of professional baseball players who are better and more useful than Nick Madrigal, and David Bote just happens to be one of them.
It’s ironic that he was recalled just 48 hours before a Cubs-Sox matchup, since it was on the field during batting practice just minutes before the start of a Cubs-Sox series at Guaranteed Third Rate Park that Bote suffered one of the most hilarious injuries in Cubs’ history when he stepped on a baseball in batting practice and severely sprained his ankle. The photo at the top of this is from the aftermath of that incident.

Somewhere, I have a photo of him just about to step on the ball, but I can’t find it. I will not rest until I find that piece of comedy gold.
Boog went on and on about Bote’s “strong numbers at Iowa.” His numbers there were good. He slashed .259/.342/.546 with seven homers, 15 RBI (OK, maybe all the numbers weren’t great) and only 18 K’s to 12 walks in 123 plate appearances.
But EVERYBODY HITS AT IOWA. Patrick Wisdom had a 1.417 OPS in his nine game rehab stint there. Curt Casali, a journeyman 35-year-old catcher had a 1.039 OPS there in 23 games, Brennen Davis hasn’t made an out in like a month, Matt Mervis has a .910 OPS there. A dozen I-Cubs have OPS pluses of .800 or better. Even Miles Mastrobuoni is…nope, wait, he’s not hitting very well at .197/.322/.382. OK, EVERYBODY BUT MILES MASTROBUONI HITS AT IOWA.
You know who else is going to hit at Iowa? Nick Madrigal. He’s going to put up good numbers there and it’s not going to prove anything. Last year he hit .424 at Iowa in 16 games and he came back to the Cubs and slashed .246/.272/.336 over the final two months of the season. Everything he proved he can’t do with the Cubs will still be true no matter what he does in the minors.