NEW YORK _ It's Bobby Bonilla Day, the day the Mets pay their former slugger $1.19 million as part of a deferred payment, with interest, from a 2000 buyout. The Mets owed Bonilla $5.9 million and agreed to pay it off with 8% interest from 2011 to 2035.
Deferred contracts are common in baseball, and Bonilla might not even be the highest-paid retired Met in 2020. David Wright is scheduled to make $12 million this year, although terms of his settlement with the Mets are not fully known.
But what is known is that Bonilla will make more money from the Mets this year than about half the roster. With players making no more than 37% of their salaries in a virus-shortened season (and less if the season is shorter than 60 games), only 18 Mets are scheduled to make more than Bonilla's $1.19 million this year, according to Spotrac.
The player directly above the Bonilla Line is outfielder Jake Marisnick, who was scheduled to make $3.3 million this year. Prorated for 60 games, he'll make $1.2 million.
Some of the Mets' most important players will make much less than Bonilla this year. Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Amed Rosario and J.D. Davis were already set to make less than $1 million in a full season; with the short season, Bonilla will outearn them by roughly a multiple of five. (For example, Alonso's salary will go from $652,000 to $241,000 if MLB finishes 60 games.)
Brandon Nimmo, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman were set to make more than Bonilla this year, but the pandemic and intransigent owners have cut their salaries to sub-Bonilla levels.
No matter who buys the Mets, they'll inherit more than a decade of payments that the previous owners thought would be covered by the payoffs from Bernie Madoff, who claimed earlier this year that he only has 18 months to live. Bonilla's payments have 15 years to go.
