20
2013
The Answer Is Jason Bay and Bobby Bonilla
An article by 
Casey: I’ll take Mets Oddities for $400, Alex.
Alex: The answer is Bobby Bonilla and Jason Bay.
Casey: Who are the highest paid outfielders on the 2013 Mets?
Alex: Good job, Casey, and I’m afraid we’re all out of time for this round as we head into Final Jeopardy. The Final Jeopardy category will be “Ponzi Schemes.” Think about your responses while we go to a quick commercial break.
The Title, Introduction and GFX for this post were done by Joe D.
* * * * * * * *
Do you realize the two highest paid Mets outfielders are players no longer with the team?
That’s right; Jason Bay and Bobby Bonilla will make more this year than the Mets’ current outfield of Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Mike Baxter, Collin Cowgill and Marlon Byrd.
The Mets made both decisions to get out of bad situations and maintain cost certainty, but in this case it came back to bite them. The first thing a financial advisor tells you is previous success is not a guarantee of future success. The Mets didn’t consider that advice.
Add the $3 million buyout to what the Mets owed Bay (including interest) and it comes to $21 million, paid out in a lump sum and deferred payments over the next several years. The deal also made Bay a free agent and he signed with Seattle. That gave Bay the chance to collect from two teams. Nice deal for him.
The Mets liked the arrangement because the Bay signing was a bust and this freed money for GM Sandy Alderson.
As for Bonilla, the Mets wanted to release him prior to the 2000 season, but didn’t want to eat the $5.9 million on his contract. Instead, the Mets agreed to a 25-year, $29.8 million deferred plan that pays Bonilla nearly $1.2 million annually. Including his pension, income from the Players Association and whatever investments he owns, Bonilla has a great retirement package. Oh, I forgot, there’s also social security.
It turned out to be a horrible deal for the Mets, but at the time they thought they could afford it because they put the original $5.9 million into an investment account with Bernie Madoff, who promised an 18 percent return. The money to pay Bonilla was to come out of that Madoff account and the Mets figured a return of almost $50 million. Being businessmen, they should have realized there can’t be a guaranteed return of any amount, let alone 18 percent.
Naturally, that won’t happen now. What will happen is the Mets remain obligated to write Bonilla a check until 2035. Naturally, hindsight says the Mets should have released Bonilla and taken the salary hit, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Smart moves by Bonilla and Bay, and also Bret Saberhagen, who gets $250,000 annually until 2029. The Mets are also on the hook for $15 million for deferred payments to David Wright.
Then there is the matter of Johan Santana who the Mets will a tidy sum to as well. Since signing his deal in 2008, $5 million of his annual salary has been deferred at 1.25% compound interest. That money is paid every June 30 seven years after the season in which the money was deferred. Those payments begin on 2015 and will last through 2020.
There’s always an element of risk with any long-term contract, but more when part of it is deferred. As it turned out, the Mets outsmarted themselves.
About the Author: John Delcos
I am an active member of the BBWAA and have covered Major League Baseball in several capacities for over 20 years, including ten in New York working the Mets' and Yankees' beat. I covered the Baltimore Orioles for eight years and the Cleveland Indians before that. I currently serve as an editor and senior staff writer for Mets Merized Online. Follow me on Twitter @jdelcos.
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Don’t worry, with the 11th pick this year, and likely a top 5 pick next year along with wheeler and d’arnaud and co we’d be in pretty good shape come 2015….
Actually there is deferred money on Santana’s contract.
$5M deferred annually at 1.25% compound interest (payable June 30 seven years after season in which salary was earned), reducing present-day value of package to $123.1M
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-league/new-york-mets/
You are absolutely right, Salty. Shame on me for not catching that when I proofed this for John. I will make the necessary edit. Thanks for pointing it out.
I simply don’t understand why any team would make such deals. You can’t blame Madoff because AFTER Madoff the Mets did the same thing with Bay and Wright…just this off season.
So, basically every year you can add 5-10 million to the payroll just for deferred payments. I guess if you defer something from all of the big contracts, it kind of evens out in the present. Defer 5 million from Wright, but pay 5 million to these other three guys and presently it’s the same payout.
I guess that’s the logic.
Not exactly true, but I am not in favor of all these deferments.
For the Bonilla and Saberhagen ones, if you take the deferred money and just drop it in one of the Madoff accounts. Based on the prospectus they would be making money every year. What was not smart was having the term so long, and also being dim enough to believe the consistent returns they were getting.
For Santana, it’s a great business move for both sides. Santana gets a longer termed contract with a small interest payout. For the Mets they make a lot of money by banking the money because they are getting more back from interest then what is paid out to Santana.
This is where the issue is. If the Mets banked the Santana money then it’s a great move. If they didn’t and used the deferment as a cheap loan, it just adds more liabilities to a portfolio of liabilities.
We don’t know how much interest is paid out on Wrights deferment yet. Bay is a different beast. We all just wanted him off the team and a 3 year deferment of those dollars is really no big deal, is it was extended longer then that will the others would be a bigger problem.
If you look at these deferrments as a sort of pension fund they tend to make more sense to people….
Company contributes to your pension fund, you get a set payment from the fund and the rest can be used for other things, Other pensions, etc…etc…
In one of your examples:
“If they didn’t and used the deferment as a cheap loan”
This is kind of like what Enron did, instead of paying money into a pension fund they gave the fund shares of it’s own stock. Essentially a loan. When the company went under so did the pension.
The Mistake the Mets made was to put all the eggs in one Madoff basket. If they had put it into a REAL and more diversified investment company they wouldn’t have the issues they did and lose the fund entirely.
We are talking not very large amounts here and I’m not even sure if the accounts that these deferrals was in is considered a Wilpon account and has not already got back some of the money they lost when the victims got some clawback money.
but Me personally I would rather just pay my bills and be done with it…
NO, THE CONCEPT REMAINS LOGICAL AS LONG AS THE CLUB EARNS MORE THAN THEY’VE PROMISED TO PAY. UNFORTUNATELY THEY HAD SEKLECTED A TOTAL CROOK TO INVEST IN.
THE LAST I’D HEARD ON THIS TOPIC WAS CONJECTURE THE NYM WERE GOING TO ATTEMPT TO WRIGGLE OUT FROM FULL LIABILITY AS THEY’D SECURED EACH PLATER’S CONCURRANCE ON THE SPECIFIC MADOFF INVESTMENT. TEAM WOULD ATTEMPT TO CLAIM THEY’D PAID THE DEFERRED AMOUNT IN FULL & PLACED IT INTO AN ACCOUNT EACH PLAYER HAD AGREED TO, FACT THERE WAS A CRIME, ELIMINATING SAID FUNDS SHOULD MAKE PLAYER CUILPABLE NOT NYM.
I’VE YET TO READ OF ANY DISPOSITION TO THIS ARGUMENT, I CAN PRECEIVE AS GOING EITHER WAY; YET I SUSPECT PKLAYERS’ COUNSEL WILL DEFEAT WILPON ATTEMPTS TO SQUIRM.
If Bay and Bonilla are the answer, I don’t want to know the question.
For those awho are interested:
Mets fans your first LIVE look at Zack Wheeler Saturday on SNY 12pm! Gary, Keith, Ron and KB
I’m looking forward to it.
I’m reading Strasburg is starting that game against Wheeler, who is starting.
Alex, MMO salutes you. You wrote that without the slightest hint of sarcasm. That couldn’t have been easy for you.
Lol, look joe D, i am a frustrated mets fan. simple as that, but i am a huge baseball fan, and i am very excited for baseball to return… To quote a FORMER jet, CAN’T WAIT!!!!
This is offtopic, but I am looking to contact the person who designed this site. I wrote using your contact form yesterday but did not receive a reply as of today. I included my actual email in the address field and would really appreciate a reply back Thanks in advance.
You forgot to mention Carlos Beltran. I’m pretty sure that deferred payments to him (of 3.5 million per year) started in 2012 and will continue through 2018 (the Giants may have to pay the 2018 portion or a part of it)..
I just realized.. that gives us a complete outfield!
LF Bay – ???
CF Beltran – 3.5 mil
RF Bonilla – 1.2 mil
Good job, TC!
Now we can call the Mets outfield the Killer B’s.
Except unlike the Houston Astros version, our Killer B’s won’t be killing the opposition, only the Mets’ future payroll flexibility.
side note…I don’t know where this 18% keeps coming from…Madoff only paid out about 10-13% on the investments. The only thing that made him odd is that he stayed in that window no matter what the market was doing.
Actually I think the number was 16% as a high note which was about 2-4% more than actual Market performance (12-14%).
And those numbers were in accusations made by Picard many of which were debunked and made up by him when he did his smear campaign in the press with his buddy from the Times…
Bobby Bonilla…wow I remember that guy. He came to the O’s and was genuinely surprised that Davey Johnson wanted him to DH.
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