July 1 has infamously become known as Bobby Bonilla Day, a narrative which has been popularized around baseball over the years. Mets owner Steve Cohen even tweeted his happy Bobby Bonilla Day wishes this morning.

Bonilla gets paid his 12th installment of $1,193,248.20 today, with 13 years of deferments remaining. The Mets have paid him a total of $14,318,878.40, with $15,512,221.60 left, as Darren Rovell pointed out. But what a lot of fans don’t realize, even in 2022, is he’s far from the only player on a deferred contract.

Look no further than Metsmerized’s own Michael Mayer, who has provided extensive research on the matter that he shares every year. Today is not just Bobby Bonilla Day — it’s the more accurately titled MLB Deferment Day. Here is his annual thread, where Mayer dug up numerous other examples of deferred contracts.

One of the ones that jumps out is former Orioles slugger Chris Davis. Baltimore owes him $42 million in deferred money over 15 years. That’s more than the Mets owe Bonilla. Yet nobody calls it Chris Davis Day.

These things extend far into the future, too. As Mayer points out, when Trevor Baauer signed with the Dodgers, they agreed to defer $20 million o f his 2021 salary to be paid in $2 million installments every December 1 from 2031 to 2040. Maybe we should all reconvene in nine years and start celebrating Trevor Bauer Day.

Another player with a large amount of deferred money on his contract is none other than Jacob deGrom. The Mets’ star right-hander agreed to defer $52.5 million when he signed his extension. Again, that’s more than Bonilla is being paid. He will be paid as late as July 1, 2039.

So you get the point. As Mayer rightly points out, deferred contracts started before Bonilla and go well beyond him. It might be fun to celebrate Bobby Bonilla for the fun or spectacle of it, but it’s far from just him that this day is truly about.