Happy Bobby Bonilla day!
 

Today like every July 1 Bobby will get a check from the Mets for $1,193,248.20 till 2035. He also gets an additional $500,000 check from the Mets/Orioles through 2029.

Mr Bonilla might have went from great to below average almost instantly but damn is he getting paid.

Mmmm, I always though it was better to demand all your money from someone up front and not agree to be paid on an installment plan.

Story is always how stupid the Mets were and how savvy Bonilla was.

Next time I buy a house I'll ask the seller after we agree on a sales price if I can hold the money in my bank account for decades.

Wow, and he's getting 8 percent interest on all that deferred money. Good thing his agent was better than Bonilla was.

Al Hrabosky is got a lot less, but his deferred payments lasted 35 years...


I believe his payments ended recently.

He signed the five-year-contract in 1980 and was released on 8/30/82.


The deferred payments were to start after he retired. Way to go Ted!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...-c1cf304e6b44/

Just read the article on this one. Smart way to guarantee some income!

Bonilla gave up 5.9 million in 2000 in exchange for 29.8 million paid later.

Even discounting for the time value of money, Bonilla is coming out way ahead in that deal, all for a season he didn’t even have to play.

The Mets always look stupid in that deal for good reason.

Yeah, “if” the Mets had earned an 8% annual return on that money they could have come out ahead.

In reality the Mets owner invested the money in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and lost it, along with hundreds of millions more, before paying the first dime on the Bonilla deal.

So I stick by my “Mets were stupid” assessment.

Ok. They were stupid for arranging a smart deal that would have allowed them to make a profit absent someone else's fraud. Got it.

Well, OK, just to play Devil's advocate lets say they didn't squander it on the Madoff pyramid scheme and invested it wisely instead. They still wouldn't have come out ahead. During the decade between the deal in 2000 and the first payment in 2010 the S & P 500 had an annual return of negative 1%. This is because of the combined effects of 9/11 and the 2008 crash. So that 8% annual return they allegedly would have made according to that Business Insider article, even if they hadn't lost it on Madoff, wouldn't have come close to happening anyway.

And of course Bonilla, if he had taken the 5.9 Million up front and invested it wisely in a diversified portfolio, would have likely found himself with about the same amount or slightly less in 2010. Because he didn't do that though, he is instead coming out way on top with annual payments of over 1 million $ for 25 years, way more than he would have likely ended up with if he had taken the 5.9 in 2000.

I realize this is all being evaluated with the benefit of hindsight, but I don't think you can say it was a smart deal for the Mets even at the time. The same stupidity that led the guy to invest in the Madoff scam led him to commit to the Bonilla deal because he unrealistically expected the returns on the ponzi scheme to go on indefinitely, without which the Bonilla deal wouldn't have made sense. That itself was a stupid judgment, even at the time.

And of course, the stupidity of the deal doesn't just relate to the deferred payment plan, but also to the wisdom of having signed him for that much in the first place.