Greatest contract ever signed by a pro athlete...hasn’t played since 2001 and gets a Mill+ every July 1st until 2035
OT: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day!
- Thread starter 9nationalchampionships
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Now up to something like $1.6 mllion with interest.
bonilla contract has nothing on Illinois pensions for public workers ! half a million dollar pensions for life with 3% guaranteed COLA all over the place. Retire in your mid 50s.
Reason number 1 why public sector union jobs shouldn't be legal. Governments have no incentive not to sign bad contracts. They just raise taxes to pay for them.
While it's fun to bag on the Bonilla contract, it actually wasn't all that bad a deal. The Mets owed him almost $6 million (there's the dumb part). He agreed to defer collecting any of the money he was owed for a decade, and now is being paid the equivalent of 8% on his money. While that's a good deal, it certainly isn't the greatest deal in the history of the world. Over the long term the stock market has returned more than 8% per year.
So IF, and it's a big IF, the Mets took the money that they owed Bonilla and invested it in a mutual fund and let it sit there without touching the principle or the interest and they are now paying Bonilla out of that money they are actually likely to come out a little ahead on the deal in the long run.
So IF, and it's a big IF, the Mets took the money that they owed Bonilla and invested it in a mutual fund and let it sit there without touching the principle or the interest and they are now paying Bonilla out of that money they are actually likely to come out a little ahead on the deal in the long run.
Not to mention that GMs love giving out long, backloaded contracts because they're unlikely to be in the same place if the contracts eventually look dumb. Agree to pay out when someone else will have to deal with it.
Albert Pujols has hit .258 in 8 years with Anaheim and he's still earning almost $30M each year to do it.
Yeah, exactly. Max Scherzer's deal with the Nats runs out in 2021, but they have deferred part of his salary and will be paying him until 2028. The current equivalent of the money they have deferred would make his salary for this season and the next two over $40 million per year. The Red Sox are still paying Manny Ramirez, and will continue to do so until 2026.
And my favorite. Bruce Sutter signed a six year contract in 1985. The Braves paid him $750,000 per season for those six years (he retired after he had only played four of them, but they paid him for all six) and then for the next 30 years after that the Braves pay Sutter $1.1 million per year. Next year will be the last year that the need to pay him. That's a pretty sweet deal, if you can get one.
The owner was friends with Bernie Madoff and took Bonilla's salary and invested it with Madoff thinking they would make money on the deal in the long run. Needless to say it didn't work out as planned.
What difference would that make? If Bonilla dies they have to pay the money to his heir. It's not like death would absolve them of having to make the payments.
People seem to forget the Mario Lemieux signed a huge contract and then barely played 2 seasons and then retired. While he deserves credit for saving the team, nobody seems to admit that he was the main person responsible for bankrupting it and he made it clear when he retired the first time that he did so because of the style of play in the league and not injuries. Not sure of any other contract that literally destroyed a team?
Especially when the politicians who push for these unions receive millions in campaign funds from them to get reelected. I could never understand how this scheme is legal.
I don't think that's quite accurate. The team went through bankruptcy proceedings at least once, and the deferred payments on Mario's contract were a substantial enough liability that the restructuring converted Mario's owed deferred payments into an ownership share.
You make a couple of really good points. Still a horrible contract in hindsight but I may have overstated the financial impact on the club.
Or they could just run their franchise like the Pirates. He'd be the 6th highest paid player this season.
According to the spotrac numbers he'd be 12th on the Pirates (Marte, Dickerson, Archer, Vazquez, Kang, Lyles and Liriano, plus Cervelli, Polanco, Kela and Chisenhall from the injury list, and just barely ahead of Cabrera).
*Shrug* the founding fathers were idealistic enough to put in a fair number of checks and balances ... but pragmatic enough to leave loopholes for legalizing their own sleaze
Guess it was where I was looking. Still illustrates what a good deal it was for him.
