They Don't Call Him Bobby Bucks for Nothing

The following is not an example of the Mets ineptitude:

After Bobby Bonilla was playing cards with Rickey Henderson in the locker room during Game 6 of the NLCS, the Mets dumped him. But instead of paying his $5.9m salary up front, with Bonilla’s permission the Mets agreed to pay him $1.2m every July 1st for 25 years starting in 2011 and going until 2035.

Though that seems like a bad deal Master Bates ran the numbers and the Mets would have need roughly 8% return on their money (somewhat reasonable) to make this pay off for them.

For Bonilla it’s a guaranteed rate of return and large payments well into his later years.

The other angle for the Mets is this: in 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom Wilpon was probably putting all his money with Madoff. He probably thought he could turn $5.9m to $30m in about 5 years, not 25.

But once again, just to set the record straight, amid all the signs of the Mets’ incompetence, this is not one of them.

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