The Cubs have despatched veteran infielder David Bote outright to Triple-A Iowa, in keeping with his transaction log on MLB.com. He had been designated for task on Friday when the Cubs claimed Gavin Hollowell off of waivers from the Diamondbacks.
Bote has the appropriate to reject an outright task in favor of free company. Nevertheless, he’s just a few days shy of the 5 years of MLB service time he would wish to reject the task with out forfeiting the assured wage remaining on the five-year, $16MM contract he signed with the Cubs throughout the 2019 marketing campaign. With slightly below 20% of the season left to play, that works out to about $1.05MM in wage this yr, plus a $1MM buyout on his membership choice for 2025. That’s considerably extra money than Bote may command if he elected free company and signed on with a brand new workforce, so he’ll nearly actually settle for the task and report back to the Iowa Cubs.
In 37 video games for the Chicago Cubs this yr, Bote hit .304 with a 105 wRC+ over 48 plate appearances. He spent most of his time enjoying third base, although he additionally crammed in at first and second. Regardless of his positional versatility and strong offensive numbers off the bench, he was a straightforward selection for the Cubs to DFA after they wanted to unencumber a spot on the 40-man roster. Not solely has he struggled over the previous month (2-for-12 for the reason that All-Star break), however given his distinctive contract scenario, the Cubs knew they may take away him from the roster with out the chance of dropping him fully. Thus, he’ll proceed to function further depth for the workforce at Triple-A, the place he has 37 doubles, 21 dwelling runs, and a 109 wRC+ in 126 video games over the previous two seasons.
