David Bote is back in Chicago.
For the first time since late 2022, Bote is on the big-league roster as the Cubs made a roster move ahead of Sunday’s game against the Reds.
Adbert Alzolay was moved to the 60-day IL to create room on the 40-man roster for Bote while NIck Madrigal was optioned to Triple-A Iowa.
Bote is a familiar name for Cubs fans. He is the longest tenured player in the organization as a 2012 draft pick (18th round).
Over the last 12 years, he has played 384 games in the majors and 781 contests in the minors.
Of course, he is most well known for the ultimate grand slam in 2018 when he hit a walk-off blast with the Cubs trailing 3-0 at Wrigley Field against the Nationals.
Bote was a big part of the Cubs teams from 2018-21. He initially came up when Kris Bryant was injured in 2018 and developed into a pretty regular role in 2019 when he played in a career-high 127 games with a .362 on-base percentage and .785 OPS.
In 2020, he led the team in RBI (29) in the shortened season and in 2021, he was named the team’s Opening Day second baseman over Nico Hoerner.
But multiple shoulder injuries cost him time in ’21 and then shoulder surgery kept him out of action for the early part of the 2022 season.
In the spring of 2019, he signed an extension with the Cubs that would pay him $15 million over 5 years and keep him under contract through the 2024 campaign.
With Triple-A Iowa this year, Bote was hitting .259/.342/.546 (.888 OPS) with 7 homers and 15 RBI in 28 games.