Garrett Stubbs on why a lockout will cost games, the salary cap debate, and more | ‘Phillies Extra’ Q&A
Stubbs, the Phillies’ union rep since 2024, will be on the front lines for a fight over baseball’s core economics. He joined The Inquirer's baseball show to discuss the players' perspective.
Garrett Stubbs found out last week that the Phillies are taking him off the roster, likely ending his five-year run with the organization.
But he expects to keep representing his ex-teammates in the MLB Players’ Association through the offseason.
In that case, Stubbs, the Phillies’ union rep since 2024, will be on the front lines for a fight over baseball’s core economics. The owners are pushing for a salary cap, a system the players have opposed for a half-century.
Stubbs joined Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball podcast, to discuss the upcoming labor dispute, which is expected to begin when the collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 1 and the owners authorize MLB to lock out the players.
Watch the full interview below and subscribe to the Phillies Extra podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. (Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
Q: Based on conversations with people in the sport, I don’t have a ton of confidence that there’s going to be a new CBA without missing games next year. You’re close to the front lines in all of this. What’s your feeling? Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
A: Look, I’m certainly an optimist about where our game is. I don’t think that baseball has been in a better position than it is right now at any point in time during its tenure. ... I don’t think that, as a business, we’ve ever been in a better place than we are right now. So, I’m optimistic about the game.
I think it’s a huge bummer to hear the commissioner [Rob Manfred] of your sport come out and tell fans that they should expect a lockout every single time a CBA is coming up for expiration. It’s not a good place to start. I don’t think that that’s negotiating in great faith. I don’t think that we’re sitting at the table and getting anywhere right now. Obviously, a salary cap is a non-starter for us [as players]. And I don’t think it puts our [sport] in a better position anyways if it were to be implemented, which it won’t. And because of that, I am not optimistic about when we’re going to start, and it’s super unfortunate.
» READ MORE: A (likely long) lockout looms again for MLB. Why a salary cap is at the center of it all. Again.
You watch the World Series ... and you’ve got two teams with very low payrolls — and it’s not to say that that’s the best way to go about your business, because going and getting the best players is the best way to win a championship. However, those are incredibly run organizations, just like the Dodgers. The Dodgers obviously have the most or one of the most resources in the entire league, so they are put in a really good position to be able to compete for a championship every year. However, you look at other teams around the league who are high, high payrolls and they miss the playoffs, so neither paying or not paying [high salaries] gets you to that World Series. It’s about a very well-run organization. That’s how you make the playoffs. That’s how you go into winning a World Series.
So, this idea of a salary cap solving some sort of competitive balance, I don’t see it. I don’t understand it. You look at the NFL and the NBA, there’s certainly organizations that make the same [runs for] championships every single year. Is that a payroll thing? No. They’re well-run organizations. That’s the bottom line. They have people that are at the higher positions making great decisions that end up turning into championships.
But to just comment on the actual CBA and where I think the season will start next year, it’s super unfortunate to be going into these meetings every single time and hearing from the other side that [the salary cap]’s their solution. When there’s a central revenue sharing system that allows teams at the bottom half not spending money to collect money from the top half spending teams that are trying to win championships and then just going about their business throughout the day, being a profitable business. And it’s unfortunate. So, I don’t believe that we’re going to start on time. I think it would be moronic to not have a season next year or miss a substantial amount of games because of the health of where we’re at as a league. So, we’ll see where Manfred and his team decide to land come Dec. 2 and on. But, yeah, I see some games getting missed this year because of where they stand on this salary cap idea.
Q: MLB has waged an actual ad campaign around competitive balance. I wonder if there’s a way for the players to counter in the PR battle there, and shed light on what it’s really all about. Because competitive balance is almost like the public face of what the real issue is, which is that the owners want to fix costs and raise their franchise values at a higher rate.
A: We all want to compete, right? And we want every single team to be competitive out there. A part of that is going and getting good players and paying them. A part of that is what I was just talking about with a well-run organization. But to me, looking at these teams that are in the World Series, they’re just gritty. [Brewers manager] Pat Murphy and [Rays manager] Kevin Cash have done a great job of getting these guys out there and playing hard every single play. We’ve heard it from postgame interviews and Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz and Derek Jeter talking about this is the way that baseball is supposed to be played, and I agree with them. I love watching these guys play ball, and I think we have that in Philly, too. I think that that’s the kind of way that baseball should be played.
... We have conversations about [competitive balance messaging] all the time. And as far as us going out there and having some sort of PR campaign about it, it’s not going to happen. Fans are smart. And I know that people are influenced from people in these high positions like Manfred, but the fans are smart, and you watch it in comments. Obviously, there’s people that are like, ‘We want a salary cap,’ but I think the majority of fans realize that that’s not going to solve the overall issue of certain owners not caring about winning. We have GMs or president of baseball ops or owners literally coming out saying we want to win about 80-some games and that’s their formula. That’s embarrassing.
» READ MORE: What the World Series teams and one stellar August can show the Phillies about improving in 2027
We are in a sport that you want to go out and win every single day. Just like if you were in business, you go out and you spend money on your product to make sure that your product is the best product available, you spend money on marketing so that people know what your product is. It’s the same thing in baseball. You go and spend money on players, and in order for your team to be the best, you go spend money on facilities so that your development in the minor leagues is the best possible option for players to go and develop and be good players, so that when they get to the big leagues, they can contribute.
So, it’s a formula as old as time. You put effort and money into something, and you get effort and money out. We’re seeing it with the effort that we see from the Brewers and the Rays right now, and you see it when you put money into an organization and go get good players, just like the Dodgers have. And so, both can coexist. I think the best formula is a mix of the two. But whether there’s a salary cap or not, the owners that don’t care about winning, they’re not going to care about winning, and that’s not fair to fans. They should be going and watching their team every single day, expecting them to put their best foot forward to try to win the game that day and make [the] playoffs.
Q: What gives you confidence that the union, with all of these different interests of its approximately 1,200 players, will hold together through this whole thing?
A: I think the reason is, one, the history of our union. I talk to guys like Larry Bowa all the time, and he still gets fired up about our union talks because he was once a player, and he knows what it’s like to stand on our side of the conversation. And everyone has different opinions on what they want. Certain guys are closer to free agency, so they want free agency [moved] up. Certain guys are closer to arbitration, so they want arbitration [moved] up. Certain guys are trying to get to the league, so they want the minimum salary to be up. So there’s always going to be different opinions on what guys want.
At the end of the day, we want the game to be the healthiest it can be. And like I said, I think we’re at a really healthy position right now, healthier than we’ve ever been, and we just want to grow with the league. We are the product out on the field that is helping the league make [exorbitant] amounts of money because we’re putting our best product out there. We’re working hard off the field so that we can be the best on the field.
But I think a big question, too, that doesn’t get asked very often — and it’s not really put forward because many of the owners right now will not take interviews as instructed by Rob Manfred — but there are owners that don’t want the salary cap and missing games next season either. But you know we’re the ones that take the interviews like this and talk about it, and we’re open about how we feel, but the 30 owners are told by Manfred not to take interviews. So, they sit behind whatever Manfred says to them, and they’re all unified and want a salary cap and all this.
But there are plenty of owners that are sitting on the other side of the table that, sure, of course, they would want a salary cap. It helps their business, and they don’t have to spend as much money, no doubt about it. But you think [Mets owner] Steve Cohen doesn’t love that he has the resources that he has and can go get the best players possible and be the best team out there? He wants that. He wants that freedom. The Dodgers want that freedom. There are plenty of teams that want that freedom because they have that desire to win and that competitive edge to be able to go and try to be the best team possible.
So the owners are not unified either … and they won’t say that because they don’t take interviews the way that we do. But the owner side, they’re not wanting to miss games.
Listen or watch the full interview for Stubbs’ thoughts on his role as the player representative for the Phillies, why he thinks the current labor meetings are “worthless,” and more.
Phillies Extra is your deep dive into all things Phillies on Gameday Central! Hosted by Scott Lauber, each episode brings you insider analysis, exclusive interviews with players and experts, reader emails, and more to cover the hottest topics with the Phillies and across Major League Baseball. Don’t miss it — the conversation starts here!
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