Mentor, mood-setter, bowling team manager: The Garrett Stubbs Experience is a hit at Lehigh Valley

ALLENTOWN — A few days before the Lehigh Valley IronPigs opened the season, manager Anthony Contreras got the players and staff together for an outing at a local bowling alley.

He didn’t know it would shape the team’s identity.

But Contreras also hadn’t managed Garrett Stubbs before.

For three seasons, Stubbs was the Phillies’ backup catcher and chief mood-setter. Be it through his curated “Phils Win” playlist on Spotify that became the pulsating beat of the clubhouse or his amusingly stylish victory overalls (available in red pinstripes and powder blue), he cultivated a positive atmosphere.

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Stubbs isn’t about to change just because he’s back in the minors for the first time since 2021. If anything, he took it as a chance to bring a slice of the Phillies’ major-league culture to triple A. So, upon observing that the IronPigs enjoyed the bowling event, he turned into a regular Jeff Lebowski.

“It started when AC scheduled a team outing, and Stubbs has pretty much organized every single one since,” pitching prospect Mick Abel said this week before a game at Coca-Cola Park. “He’s always like, ‘OK, all right, when do we bowl?’”

Stubbs wrangles as many teammates as possible for well-attended bowling get-togethers on nights off at home and on the road. They call themselves the “Lehigh Valley IronPins,” and from the sound of it, they’re poised to take over league nights across the region.

It has caught on as a team-wide theme. Lately, whenever an IronPigs player hits a home run, he’s greeted back in the dugout with a hat that features a squishy bowling pin sticking up inside a crown.

Why stop there, though? Stubbs brought his DJ skills down to the farm, too, creating a new victory playlist. And the IronPigs win a lot. With a mix of prospects (center fielder Justin Crawford, Abel, starter-turned-reliever Seth Johnson, and most recently, Andrew Painter) and veterans with big-league experience (Stubbs, infielders Christian Arroyo and Buddy Kennedy, outfielders Cal Stevenson and Óscar Mercado, and righty Nabil Crismatt), they won 18 of their first 25 games, the best start in club history. Through Thursday, they were 24-12, tops in the International League.

So, what’s the Pigs’ version of “Dancing On My Own?”

“I can’t get into any of the specifics,” said Abel, smirking and clearly sworn to secrecy but willing to confirm the existence of the playlist.

» READ MORE: Garrett Stubbs is more than just the Phillies’ director of positive vibes: ‘I’ve helped this team win’

Did Stubbs bring his overalls with him?

“Not that I’ve seen,” Abel said.

Just wait. It’s all part of the Stubbs Experience.

“I don’t know if I’ve got one great ‘Garrett Stubbs story’ yet, per se, but just being around him, man, he’s such a positive person,” Abel said. “He’s very passionate about baseball, very passionate about everything he does. It’s uplifting. He’s always amped up.”

But Stubbs’ impact goes deeper than his energy and good cheer. All along, he figured he would likely open the season in triple A because, unlike fellow backup catcher Rafael Marchán, he has minor league options. It would’ve been poor roster management for the Phillies to do anything other than protect their catching depth.

That didn’t make it any easier to swallow in the final days of spring training, when Phillies manager Rob Thomson told him he was being sent down.

Stubbs could’ve wallowed in the disappointment. Instead, he channeled it into working with younger players. And all of the IronPigs are younger than Stubbs.

In two weeks, Stubbs will turn 32. He got married in the offseason. He and his wife, Evyn, are expecting a baby in a few months. They found a house in Lehigh Valley — “A nice little place,” Stubbs said, “with a backyard to take the dogs out” — and they intend to keep it all season, regardless of whether he gets called up.

Stubbs has become, in Contreras’ words, “an extension of us as a coaching staff.”

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“You can be in triple A and see some older guys be bitter and not want to be here. Well, no one wants to be here,” said Stubbs, batting .316 with four doubles, two homers, and an .870 OPS in 21 games through Thursday. “Everyone wants to be in the big leagues.

“I’ve had some really incredible experiences in the big leagues that I get to bring here and [give] advice, or teach, or whatever. Just instill a little bit of wisdom. Seeing the older guys and the younger guys taking that desire to be in the big leagues and not turning it into bitterness but turning it into, ‘How do I get better,’ has been a lot of fun for me.”

Don’t be fooled, though. Stubbs still has his eye on the majors.

Stubbs walked into the IronPigs’ clubhouse at about 9:30 Wednesday night after a 6-4 loss to Worcester, the Red Sox’s triple-A affiliate.

Just in time to catch the end of the Phillies game.

When Stubbs got sent down, the Phillies agreed that he should stay on as their representative in the MLB Players’ Association. Because he’s still on the 40-man roster, he remains a full-fledged union member.

But his long-distance interactions with the clubhouse go beyond MLBPA business. So, when Taijuan Walker punctuated three scoreless innings in his first appearance since being moved to the bullpen by striking out the Rays’ Curtis Mead on a down-and-away cutter, Stubbs reached for his phone.

» READ MORE: Need a rest? J.T. Realmuto will never admit it, even as his offense dips. But his value goes beyond his bat.

“I texted him immediately,” he said. “That was sick.”

It wasn’t the first time this season that he reached out to Walker. In a way, they’re kindred spirits. Walker had one of the worst seasons ever for a Phillies pitcher last year. But he opened with a 2.54 ERA in a half-dozen starts as a fill-in for injured Ranger Suárez.

Then, when Suárez returned last week, Walker got squeezed out and moved to the bullpen.

» READ MORE: Phillies prospect Dante Nori grew up collecting baseball cards. Now he’s chasing his own rookie cards.

“He’s had an incredible start this year as a starter, so I’ve been texting him, just saying, ‘Awesome job,’” Stubbs said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, and I’m sure he wants to be starting. But to go and accept that role and then produce in that role, it was an awesome thing to see.”

Stubbs also keeps in close contact with pitching coach Caleb Cotham. Although Stubbs didn’t play much over the last three years as J.T. Realmuto‘s backup, he sat in on daily pregame meetings with the starting pitchers.

The Phillies asked Stubbs to bring the same preparation to Lehigh Valley. He breaks down opposing hitters with notes and charts, “everything you can possibly look for,” as Abel said. Abel enjoys diving into pitching metrics and absorbing information and marvels at Stubbs’ attention to detail.

But Stubbs can also make observations to Cotham about the major-league staff. And Cotham welcomes his input.

“I’ve talked to Coth multiple times about the pitching staff, about our game-planning stuff,” Stubbs said. “It’s been nice being able to communicate with him about the different pitchers and what not. And obviously I’m checking in on guys.”

If it sounds like Stubbs has a future in coaching, well, he has thought about it.

For weeks, Painter dominated overmatched A-ball hitters with his high-90s fastball and knees-knocking curve. But it’s about to get more difficult. He arrived in triple A this week, the final stop on his surgery-interrupted journey to the majors, with a “July-ish” ETA, by president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski‘s timeline.

So, on the walk from the bullpen to the IronPigs’ dugout before Painter’s triple-A debut Thursday night, Stubbs offered a few helpful reminders.

“I told him, ‘Look, there’s going to be at least one time during this game where something doesn’t go the way that we want it to,’” Stubbs said. “‘Something’s going to happen. And you’re going to have to be a man and be a competitor and figure a way out of it.’”

» READ MORE: Andrew Painter is healthy and pitching again. Here’s how the Phillies are planning for his return in 2025.

Sure enough, with two out in the third inning, Painter lost a seven-pitch duel with Roman Anthony, the consensus top prospect in baseball. After walking Anthony, he walked touted shortstop Marcelo Mayer on four pitches and loaded the bases by walking Nick Sogard.

Painter shook off Stubbs a few times. At one point, he threw back-to-back changeups, an off-speed pitch that he’s still perfecting. With the bases loaded, he went back to the windup and got a hitter with major-league experience to pop out.

Stubbs loved it — the result, but also the process.

“I was smiling because that was the moment that I was talking about, where you’re going to have to [man] up and get through it. And he did,” Stubbs said. “It was good to see him have that moment and come out positively.”

There will be others, and Stubbs will be right there with Painter. There’s a certain satisfaction in being able to pay it forward for younger players.

It may even lead to Stubbs’ next chapter, not that he has any intention of hanging up his shin guards any time soon.

“I’ve thought about many different avenues post-playing,” Stubbs said. “I’ve thought of things anywhere from media to manager to real estate and being completely out of baseball. I’d be an electric [golf] caddy.”

(Cue the laugh track.)

“So, yeah, I don’t know what post-baseball brings,” he continued. “But being a manager, a coach, being part of something winning-oriented is definitely something I think about.”

It would suit him. And these days of riding on buses and staying in three-star hotels on the road have only reinforced that idea.

“We see it day in and day out behind the scenes, how he can impact a clubhouse,” Contreras said. “Then you watch him on the field and how he can direct these pitchers and has a good pulse for when things aren’t going their way. He knows when to take those [mound] visits and calm them down or rile them up. All that stuff plays into effect.”

Even in a bowling alley.

“We’ll go bowling and he’s as competitive as he would be on the baseball field,” Abel said. “He’s always amped up if somebody gets a strike or something. It’s funny. It’s fun to be around.”