Comment by kristianp
1 day ago
That Bobby Banilla story is nuts. So instead of paying $5.9m in 2000, the Mets decided to defer the payments for 11 years! And also to stretch them out over 25 years! Didn't the Mets realise that just paying the full amount (with interest) 2 or 3 years later cost them a lot less. On the other hand, $1.1m is probably peanuts in terms of Mets expenses these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Bonilla
On the other hand there are claims this allowed the Mets to free up cash flow in the short term and also allowed them a draft pick in the next season.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/07/01/new-yor...
The bobby bonilla contract is the stuff of legends now but nobody would care if bonilla actually lived up to expectations.
I also fell into that rabbit hole, went here: https://neilpaine.substack.com/p/classic-post-bobby-bonilla-...
Good stuff.
That's a good article for some depth into his career and argues he wasn't overpaid for his career performance. Doesn't go into the deal. This article claims the Mets deferred Bonilla's pay so they could invest more money into Madoff's ponzi scheme: https://www.espn.com.au/mlb/story/_/id/31256115/bernie-madof...