Let’s do a little blind resume.

Can you guess who each player is?

Player A: 0.6 WAR, 7 HR, 48 RBI, .689 OPS
Player B: 0.6 WAR, 9 HR, 24 RBI, .809 OPS

Player A is Kyle Tucker.

Player B is Michael Conforto.

Tucker went from the Cubs to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the offseason while Conforto migrated east from the Dodgers to the Cubs.

It wasn’t a trade behind the two outfielders swapping teams, but the Cubs are clear winners in this scenario.

Tucker famously signed a $240 million deal over four years after his lone season in Chicago that began with a flourish and ended with a whimper.

[Cubs mailbag: Answering fan questions]

Conforto, meanwhile, didn’t have many opportunities in free agency over the winter and eventually inked a minor-league deal with the Cubs on Feb. 23. He made the team out of spring training and has since become one of the surprise factors in 2026.

“Michael’s made a huge contribution,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Wednesday evening. “I’m not sure when we signed him, but it was pretty late. That’s one of those opportunities that happens later in the offseason. He’s made a really meaningful contribution, absolutely.”

The numbers above do carry a slight caveat — Conforto has more than 200 fewer plate appearances than Tucker, who plays every day for the Dodgers.

Conforto has seen some time in the corner outfield (23 games in right, 10 games in left) but has mostly served as a DH option for the Cubs against right-handed pitchers (28 games) and also as a left-handed bat off the bench for Counsell (29 pinch-hit appearances).

The 33-year-old veteran has excelled whenever he has received the chance to play.

On Tuesday night, Conforto crushed his ninth homer of the season — and his fourth as a pinch-hitter. It tied a Cubs franchise record set by Glenallen Hill in 1999.

Pinch-hitting has always been one of the hardest things to do in baseball — coming in cold off the bench and trying to deliver in what is often a crucial moment late in a game.

It’s especially difficult in today’s game, with seemingly every reliever approaching triple digits in velocity and spinning nasty breaking balls.

Yet Conforto is hitting .333/.379/.889 (1.268 OPS) as a pinch-hitter with seven RBI.

“I don’t really know how he does that, to be totally honest,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said of his teammate. “The consistency of at-bat has been incredible. It feels like he’s either homering or on the verge of it. And done it in really big moments for us, too.

“Just so much credit to him and his experience. But also the behind the scenes stuff that people don’t get to see. It’s just someone at the heart of a lot of the fun this team is having and the relationships. He’s been everything we could’ve hoped for.”

Conforto only notched 38 plate appearances through March and April as Moisés Ballesteros was thriving in the DH spot, leaving a tough path to playing time for the veteran outfielder.

But the rookie hit a rough patch in May and was eventually sent down to Triple-A, opening the door for more at-bats for Conforto.

This is nothing new for Conforto, who was the 10th overall pick in the 2014 Draft (taken six spots after the Cubs selected Kyle Schwarber). He was a Top 100 prospect and soared through the minor leagues, making his MLB debut with the Mets roughly a calendar year after being drafted.

Conforto was a mainstay in the Mets outfield for the next seven years, making the All-Star team in 2017 and hitting 33 homers with 92 RBI in 2019.

He missed the 2022 season with a shoulder injury and spent the next three years in the NL West — first with the Giants (2023-24) and then with the Dodgers.

“I thought he just came into the season in a really good place in terms of -— this is a player who has accomplished a lot in his career,” Counsell said. “He’s been a starter, he’s signed big contracts, he’s a first-round pick, he was a big prospect, he’s played in New York, he’s played in LA, he’s played in San Francisco.

“So he’s done a lot. And I don’t think he was happy with how he played last year.”

Conforto struggled in his lone season in L.A. He appeared in 138 games for the eventual World Series champions, but did not crack the playoff roster. He hit just .199 with a .637 OPS and 12 homers in 486 regular season plate appearances.

“The best way to describe it is he’s confident, yet very humble,” Counsell said. “And I think that allows him to be good at the job that he’s currently in. So he’s not wondering why he’s not playing. He’s just getting ready for the next time he’s gonna play or going to contribute.

“And no matter what happens in that at-bat or in that game that he played, it just kinda gets erased and you just move on to the next moment. He’s really good at that. When you have some sporadic playing time, I think having that kind of mindset is really helpful.”

Good teams need surprise contributions every year in order to find success in a playoff race.

The Cubs signing Conforto wasn’t widely heralded at the time, but it has turned into an important move for a team trying to chase down the Milwaukee Brewers in a tough NL Central.