Bobby Bonilla did not need a financial advisor like Lenny Dykstra to know he was making a good deal when he signed a deferred buyout that will pay him approximately $1.2 million per year for the next 25 years. Beginning this July, the player known simply as BobbyBo will be back on the Mets payroll. The deal Bonilla signed to be banished from the Mets made him one of the first big leaguers to negotiate his own multimillion dollar pension. He might be a malcontent, but apparently he's not stupid when it comes to finances.
As this WSJ article points out, Bonilla's contact has a precedent, as the Mets offered a similar deal to Bret Saberhagen. But Bret's 25 year deal only totaled $250,000 per year, which now looks like chump change compared to the bank that Bonilla will be making until he is 74 years old. Clearly, all the card playing that BobbyBo was known to do in the clubhouse made him a little better with numbers than Saberhagan.
An interesting caveat to the Bonilla deal was that the deferred payments were based on an expected interest rate of 8% that Freddy Wilpon was eager to lock in. I guess I would lock that rate in too if I was generating 25% returns every year from Bernie Madoff.
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