CINCINNATI – Michael Conforto hit .199 with the Dodgers last season.
He didn’t play in a single playoff game en route to their second consecutive World Series win.
They wish he never left.
“Some of the Dodger guys that we all know and are friends with,” Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson said, “we were talking about how much they missed having him around and that he was their guy and all that.
“For someone who experienced the struggles he experienced there and for them to still wish he was there, in a way, that just says everything about who he is and his personality and what he means to a group.”
Conforto is now bringing that same kind of thing to the Cubs, with whom he’s playing the outfield and serving as a designated hitter.
And he’s hitting again, hitting really well, as a matter of fact, coming into Saturday with an OPS-plus of 127, making him 27 percent more productive than the average major league hitter. He’s reaching base in nearly a third of his trips to the plate. His .817 OPS is among the best in his career.
Statistically, he’s having his best offensive season in more than half a decade.
Though he has homered twice in only six plate appearances against lefties, Conforto has been dispatched almost exclusively against right-handed pitching, gaining playing time with Opening Day designated hitter Moises Ballesteros back in the minors following offensive struggles as the team quested to get him more regular at-bats.
It hasn’t been by default. Conforto “earned” more playing time, as manager Craig Counsell put it. But Conforto arrived after spring training began, coming to the Cubs as a former All Star with a decade in the bigs under his belt knowing he’d likely be a part-timer.
That’s been no small thing, in the Cubs’ eyes.
“Michael’s a pro. He’s ready to do whatever,” Counsell said Friday. “The best thing he did, he came into the season with – I don’t want to say no expectations – but expectations to just enjoy playing Major League Baseball. Whatever the role is is what the role is. And he’s basically earned some at-bats.
“It’s been good for us and good for him. He’s having a nice bounce-back season.”
It’s no surprise that Conforto’s team-before-me attitude has been well received in a Cubs’ clubhouse that champions a professional approach and believes it key to achieving their championship-level goals.
“That’s just how he is, in general. He’s been like that his whole career,” said Swanson, who like Conforto is playing in his 11th big league season. “He’s always been a guy that’s, obviously, wanting to be the best player he can be – and he’s still working towards being the best that he can be – but just allowing for that selflessness sort of attitude to remain at the center is cool to see, especially with someone that’s 10 years in.”
Before you let Conforto’s absence from the Dodgers’ title run last fall fool you, he is a veteran of the World Series, having played with the runner-up Mets in 2015. He homered twice and drove in four runs in that Series, won by the Royals the year before the Cubs broke the curse.
Like 2021 World Series winner Swanson and two-time champ Alex Bregman, Conforto brings the knowhow of how to reach baseball’s mountaintop, adding more experience to a Cubs roster trying to do just that as they close out an up-and-down first half.
“We’re OK with where we’re at. We’re still hungry to play better,” Conforto said Friday. “We’re still kind of unhappy with where we’re at, still looking to get better, and we feel like we haven’t played up to our potential yet. That’s the goal for us is to keep getting better as the season goes on.”