CHICAGO — As Cubs manager Craig Counsell recently said, good teams need surprises each season.

It’s impossible to predict where those surprises will come or in what form they will show up. And for the 2025 Cubs, a big reason behind their early success is surprise contributions from Carson Kelly, Matthew Boyd and Brad Keller, among others.

The Cubs signed Kelly and Boyd to fill important roles on the team, but they didn’t necessarily count on this level of production from either veteran.

Boyd was signed to be the team’s No. 4 or 5 starter, and he is 4-2 with a 2.98 ERA and six quality starts in his nine outings. He has been the stabilizing force the Cubs needed in their rotation after injuries to Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga.

Kelly was added to be the veteran half of a catching duo with Miguel Amaya. Kelly always has been a solid backstop, but he has been known more for his work behind the plate than at it.

Yet this season, Kelly has been unstoppable offensively, hitting .299/.436/.632 (1.069 OPS) in 28 games entering play Sunday. He already has accrued 1.6 WAR (by Baseball Reference’s metric), which isn’t far from the career-high 2.1 WAR he posted in 2021 with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

[WATCH: Complete exclusive interview with Jed Hoyer]

“Our acquisition team — our pro scouting department — did a good job this winter,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said on the Marquee Sports Network broadcast Saturday. “Boyd’s been excellent for us so far. Obviously Kelly’s been remarkable. Anyone’s lying if they say they expected that kind of performance, but he was an acquisition we were excited to get.”

And then there’s Keller.

The Cubs signed the veteran right-hander to a minor-league contract in the offseason and invited him to spring training. After a strong showing in Arizona, Keller earned a big-league roster spot for the U.S. opener in late March, and her has been a big part of the Cubs’ bullpen this year, collecting five holds while posting a 3.05 ERA and 1.16 WHIP with 23 strikeouts in 20.2 innings.

[WATCH: Brad Keller on what he attributes to his rise in velocity and more]

The Cubs have needed every bit of it to navigate the bullpen instability that has featured injuries to projected key members (Ryan Brasier, Tyson Miller) and underperformance by others (Ryan Pressly, Nate Pearson, Eli Morgan).

“I’ll give the pitching infrastructure a lot of credit on Brad Keller,” Hoyer said Saturday. “They saw this, they believed in him, they pushed for him, and that’s really been a big win for them.”

The Cubs have had other big acquisition wins on the pitching staff during the season (Drew Pomeranz, Chris Flexen), but the additions of Boyd and Keller — as well as Kelly on the offensive side — have stood out most.