Chicago Cubs: David Bote would greatly benefit from Espada hiring

Expected to take over the Ben Zobrist role in 2020, David Bote could greatly benefit from the Chicago Cubs hiring Joe Espada as manager.

When the Chicago Cubs inked David Bote to a five-year extension early on in the season, it was a really smart move on the front office’s part. Bote was under contract through the 2024 season but was arbitration eligible beginning this offseason. The extension was worth an extremely team-friendly $15 million with two club options for 2025 and 2026. Essentially, the contract locks Bote into a $3 million AAV in the event that he produces monster stats that greatly exceed his value in arbitration cases.

He saw a lot of the field in 2019 due to Ben Zobrist‘s absence from the team and is expected to take on a bit of a similar role as a super-utility man going forth. Zobrist, 38, was under contract through the 2019 season and is infamously known for hitting the game-winning double down the left-field line in the top half of the 10th inning in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. But the likelihood that he comes back next season is not great, nor should the Cubs re-sign him if we’re being honest. I’m thankful for everything that Zobrist gave to this organization but it’s time.

While Bote slashed a respectable 0.257/0.362/0.422 with 11 home runs and 47 RBI in 127 games with the team, his defense left a lot to be desired. The Cubs will need to hang on to Bote this offseason and beyond due to Kris Bryant‘s recent struggles to stay healthy. Bote saw the most time at third base this season but recorded a 0.915 fielding percentage with 11 errors at the position.

He was by no means great at shortstop either in place of Javier Baez and Addison Russell with a 0.917 fielding percentage and 1 error in 9 games there. His play at second base was a little better with a 0.971 fielding percentage but had 4 errors in 50 games.

With the rumors swirling on who the next Cubs manager might be, it appears that it’s going to come down to Joe Espada and former Cub, David Ross. The former would be the ideal candidate (with the hope that Ross would want to be his bench coach) as he was a former infield coach with the Yankees. While that was his official title in New York, Espada preached the same fundamentals to the Houston Astros infield as well, which by the way, led Major League Baseball with a 0.988 fielding percentage last season.

Espada would be expected to bring that same knowledge over if he’s named the next manager of the Chicago Cubs, who finished with the third-most errors in baseball. Bote committed 16 of those with Baez, Bryant, and Willson Contreras at 15, 15, 12, respectively.

The number of errors that the Cubs committed both in the field and on the basepaths is simply unacceptable. It certainly had a hand in why they failed to reach the postseason for the first time in the Joe Maddon era. With hands-on teaching from Espada, the Cubs could very well find themselves back in the postseason in 2020.