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by moate 2540 days ago
Seems like it worked well for everyone. The Mets are paying out less than they would have if they'd paid the money at the time and because of the savings were able to acquire players that helped them go onto the WS. Bonilla keeps getting ~ a million dollars every year.
1 comments
the_watcher 2540 days ago
They turned $5.9M into almost ~$30M. How is that they are paying out less? It's possible that via time value they could make more than an 8% return, but definitely not assured.
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unreal37 2540 days ago
The argument is that they immediately spent the $5.9 million on another player the next season (who they would not have been able to get due to the salary cap), who led them into the World Series. They traded that player away for another player who has become a superstar. So they did in fact turn the savings into something meaningful.

It worked out for both of them. There are win-win deals.

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the_watcher 2540 days ago
I both agree and disagree. From a purely financial standpoint, this was almost assuredly a bad deal for the Mets over the course of the payments.

That said, the whole point of owning a sports franchise is to get to and win a championship, so in that sense, yes, this was almost definitely worth it. Also, I don't know the economics for baseball in 2000, but I know that in the NBA, each home playoff game is generally considered worth several million dollars, so if Bonilla buyout for Hampton was causal to reaching the WS, they may have made the money back in 2000 alone.

Plus, there's the whole "Bobby Bonilla seemed like he was a gigantic pain to the organization" aspect.

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zerocrates 2540 days ago
There is no salary cap in MLB. At the time even the "luxury" tax on particularly high payrolls had just been eliminated.
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moate 2540 days ago
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bobby-bonilla-was-more-...

Sorry, there's a whole lot of context that my previous statement leaves out, as well as me framing it very poorly.

No, the real value of the contract (because of interest) is greater than the amount he was owed (adjusted for inflation). By that math, the Mets payed more than they should have and you are correct.

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