My Preemptive "The Mets Pay Bobby Bonilla $1.2 MillIon Dollars Today" Blog
Tomorrow is July 1st. Which means just like every July 1st before it, for the past 4 years, the Mets have paid Bobby Bonilla $1.2 million. And every July 1st from now until 2035, they will continue to pay Bobby Bonilla $1.2.
I know its wacky. I know Bobby Bo sucks. I know the Mets are a franchise that often screws up so they catch a lot of shit from fans about anything and everything. And I know the internet loves to pile on and talk shit on twitter. I fully comprehend how it seems absurd that the Mets are paying Bobby Bonilla tens of millions of dollars over multiple decades. So, I get it. I get why people love, and I mean LOVE to point out this quirky contract. I get at least 1 or two tweets a day about it year round, and then on July 1st the floodgates open and everyone and their mother tweet it at Mets fans, as if we’re learning about this deferred contract for the very first time.
So this is my preemptive strike. Get it all out now. The reality of the matter is, this move made perfect sense for the Mets at the time. Its basic time value of money. The net present value of the lump sum they got to defer, if invested at standard rates, is more valuable than the annual installments they would pay Bobby Bonilla from 2011 until seemingly the end of time. It doesnt really feel like that. It sounds way worse for the Mets. But if you cant wrap your mind around that, its kind of like “what weighs more – a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?”
Now, the Mets probably went and invested that lump sum of cash with Madoff and lost all that money and so now they are most definitely coming out on the short end of the stick. But the logic behind saving large sums of money up front in exchange for smaller payments down the round is some very very very basic shit and it drives me fucking INSANE that people dont understand it and it drives me FUCKING INSANE that I root for a franchise that sucks so much I have to defend these types of things. The bottom line is the Mets didnt invent deferred contracts. They arent the only team paying players well after retirement. The Red Sox are paying Manny until 2026. Rockies paying Helton until 2024. Ken Griffey is collecting checks until hes in his 50s. The Nats are going to pay Scherzer until the day he dies. Kevin Garnett will get $35 million from the Celtics after he hangs em up. Its not that unusual, its just that both Bobby Bonilla and the Mets suck so people love to fucking talk about it.
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So I’m not here to rain on your parade. Go ahead and tweet it at me all day tomorrow and say LOL Mets and shit like that. But in order for me to sleep at night I have to make an honest attempt to defend my team here because its basic finance. So look at this fucking chart and tweet away you cocksuckers:
