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Podcast Transcript

Every July 1st, retired Major League Baseball player Bobby Bonilla receives a direct deposit from the New York Mets despite not having played for the franchise for a quarter of a century.

Sports fans celebrate this date with a mix of hilarity and absolute bewilderment as “Bobby Bonilla Day,” universally mocking it as the ultimate symbol of front-office incompetence.

However, that’s not quite true.

This contract wasn’t a classic Mets blunder; it was a highly calculated financial maneuver backed by standard accounting logic.

Learn more about Bobby Bonilla Day on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

At the height of his career, Bobby Bonilla was one of the best players in baseball. Paired with Barry Bonds, Bonilla was an anchor of the legendary “Killer B’s” lineup of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He played almost every day, hit for contact, averaged 25 home runs a year, routinely drove in 100 runs, and led the league in doubles. He was one of the best players in baseball when he became a free agent in 1991.

The New York Mets, eager to recapture the glory of their 1986 World Series win, won an intense bidding war for his services and made Bonilla the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball history at that time.

Not only was he the highest-paid player in baseball, but he was briefly the highest-paid athlete in American sports, making more per season than Michael Jordan!

Mets fans were ecstatic; they signed the best free agent in the sport, and to top it all off, Bonilla was a New Yorker, born in the Bronx. The front office put Bonilla on a roster, which already featured two Cy Young Award-winning pitchers in Doc Gooden and Frank Viola.

Mets fans expected a championship. 

Bonilla was a microcosm of the New York Mets; the organization made a major financial commitment to the roster and fielded a team with the third-highest payroll in baseball.

Despite outspending everyone else in their division, the team finished second-to-last in Bonilla’s inaugural season.  Bonilla’s numbers declined, but he remained a formidable middle-of-the-order hitter for the Mets, although he failed to live up to his status as the highest-paid player in American Sports.

Bonilla’s 1992 Mets were so disappointing that they inspired an unflattering book by New York sports writers Bob Klapisch and John Harper, The Worst Team Money Could Buy: The Collapse of the 1992 NY Mets.

He bounced back in 1993, put together a 34-home run season, and hit for power throughout the rest of his tenure. The Mets traded Bonilla to the Baltimore Orioles at the 1995 trade deadline. His value had skyrocketed, given a strong start to the first half of the 1995 season.

The trade netted the Mets two of the better outfield prospects in baseball in Alex Ochoa and Damon Buford. Bonilla played strong the rest of the year and helped lead the Orioles to the postseason.

Blaming Bonilla for the Mets’ collapse during his tenure is simply unfair; his performance was only slightly below the norms he established in Pittsburgh, and he made the All-Star team with New York in 1993.

Following his trade to the Orioles, Bonilla put together several productive seasons before fading. Despite his declining performance, Bonilla returned to New York for the 1999 season.

In 1997, the New York Mets brought reliever Mel Rojas to New York from the Montreal Expos. He had a big arm, and the Mets thought they could rejuvenate his career. The Rojas experiment was a disaster; in fact, late in 1998, the Mets wanted to move him so badly that they traded him to the Dodgers for a rapidly declining Bobby Bonilla and his nearly 6 million contract.

The Mets thought that the 35-year-old Bonilla could recapture his previous power. However, the Mets were wrong…very wrong. Bonilla’s 1999 season was a disaster.

Not only did he fail to play at his previous high level, but Bonilla produced at levels so low that they almost defy explanation. Through 60 games, Bonilla hit a remarkably bad .160 with 4 home runs and played defense so poorly that it became difficult to play him.

Bobby Valentine, an old-school manager, managed the 1999 New York Mets. He was known for his brilliant baseball mind and his highly charismatic, volatile leadership style. Bonilla and Valentine frequently clashed.

New York was the worst place for the “Clash of the Bobbys” to take place, as the media scrutiny of their feud was relentless. With Bonilla’s on-field performance cratering, Valentine had no choice but to bench him, and Bonilla did not take it well. During an extra-inning win against the Toronto Blue Jays, Bonilla refused to go into the game as a pinch hitter.

The confrontation between Valentine and Bonilla continued to simmer, reaching a boiling point in 1999, when, during the deciding game of the 1999 NLCS against the Atlanta Braves, Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson retreated to the clubhouse to play cards rather than watch the game from the dugout. 

According to Bonilla, the cards distracted a furious Henderson after Valentine pulled him from the game several innings earlier 

Regardless of why Bonilla and Henderson ended up in the clubhouse playing cards, the damage was done; Bonilla had become a pariah on the team. With a toxic relationship with the manager, and an obviously declining skillset, Bonilla gave the Mets every reason to move on immediately. 

The Mets explored a possible buyout of the deal at the end of the season, but the card game accelerated their urgency. Knowing the organization wanted a buyout, Bonilla’s agent, Dennis Gilbert, proposed a unique solution.

To free up cash now and avoid dead money on the roster, Gilbert suggested deferring payments in an annuity-like structure. Gilbert had a long history in the insurance business, and deferring the payment made sense for both his client and the Mets organization.

Bonilla had made nearly 50 million during his playing career, and given his flexibility, Gilbert knew his client could live comfortably until the deferments kicked in.

Gilbert approached the Mets with a unique offer: take the 5.9 million base salary, add 8% interest each year, and begin payments in 2011, spread over 25 years.

Gilbert’s proposal increased the total value of the remaining contract to nearly 30 million, while providing the Mets with flexibility to use the money immediately to improve a roster that nearly made the World Series.

It offered a win-win situation for everyone. Bonilla would receive a yearly payment of 1.2 million from 2011 through 2035. The…