Pinch hitting is hard. Getting inconsistent at-bats as a backup is hard.
“I’ve also heard playing every day is hard,” Cubs second baseman David Bote quipped over Zoom Monday.
He’ll find out this season. Cubs manager David Ross named Bote the Cubs’ everyday second baseman over the weekend, after the team optioned Nico Hoerner to Triple-A.
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Bote, entering his fourth year in MLB, didn’t get sentimental about the opportunity on Monday. He said his reaction to Ross giving him the news was, “Thanks. Let’s go do it.”
Bote laughed on the Zoom conference: “That was pretty much the extent of it.”
Maybe his even-keeled reply explains how Bote has been able to carve out a utility role for himself over the past few years and now claim a starting spot on the Opening Day roster.
Last season, Bote led the Cubs with 29 RBIs. Center fielder Ian Happ came in just behind him, with one fewer RBI in 86 more plate attempts.
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A week ago, Bote also had the edge on Hoerner in spring offensive numbers – Hoerner has since taken the lead with seven hits in the past six games.
“I admire Nico so highly,” Bote said. “As a person, as a friend, as a competitor, as a ballplayer. The guy works extremely hard. He loves the game. He's such a good teammate. To have a guy like that to push you, to want to make you a better player, a better person. He's my catch partner – just the friendship that we've been able to develop has been really fun.”
The two took opposite paths to this spring’s position battle. Hoerner, a former Stanford standout, was fast-tracked to the big-leagues. He skipped Triple-A altogether when injury left the Cubs shorthanded in September 2019. Bote was an 18th round draft pick out of Neosho County Community College, who just kept climbing through the organization. He signed a five-year extension in 2019, less than a year after he hit his infamous walk-off grand slam.
“It's David's turn," Ross said Saturday. "I think David's been hearing that message for a long time, that it’s somebody else's turn, it's not your turn. Now David gets an opportunity.”
Those words were the one subject that seemed to move Bote Monday.
“That was as pretty impactful,” Bote said. “That just shows who Rossi is as a person, as a manager who gets it. He gets this game. He gets his players. He knows me, he knows my past.”
Bote said he’d never been much of a reader before, but he’s read nine books this spring, on a wide variety of topics.
“I read this in a book,” he said, paraphrasing. “'I’ve got a long way to go.’ But then someone says, ‘But also see how far you've come.’”