Bloops: Bonilla to be Employed by Mets for Next 25 Years
Posted by Neil Paine on July 2, 2010
Remember Bobby Bonilla's second stint with the New York Mets? The one that lasted just one season (1999) and provided negative wins above replacement (-1.5 WAR)? As the WSJ reports, Bonilla actually looks back on it fondly, thanks to a bizarre buyout negotiated by Steve Phillips:
"One year from today, the Mets will add to their payroll a 47-year-old, past-his-prime power hitter who has a reputation as a malcontent—a player who has been retired from professional baseball for nine years and won't play another game again.
Nevertheless, starting on July 1, 2011, Bobby Bonilla will remain on the franchise's payroll for 25 years, collecting an annual salary of $1,193,248.20. Those are the terms the Mets agreed to Jan. 3, 2000, when they bought out the final year of Mr. Bonilla's contract.
[...]
This unusual arrangement between him and the Mets, though, is characteristic of his time with the team—4½ years marked by controversy and unmet expectations. By the time Mr. Bonilla departed, the Mets were so eager to be rid of him that they agreed to defer payment—with interest—of the $5.9 million they owed him in the final year of his contract."
And you thought the days of Phillips haunting Mets fans were over!
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I may be in the minority on thinking this way, but honestly, Bonilla's performance during his time with the Mets wasn't as bad as it's made out to be. Bonilla's career slash line was .279/.358/.472/.829, with a 124 OPS+. With the Mets, it was .270/.356/.495/.851 with a 127 OPS+. He had a career high with 34 home runs in 1993, his 1994 pro-rates to 30 HR/100 RBI without the strike, and he was one of the best hitters in the league in 1995 (.325 AVG, 160 OPS+) before the Mets finally decided to cut their losses and rebuild.
As the WSJ article points out, he just was the face of the franchise during a time when they went from perennial contenders to perennial doormats. The contract he signed with them prior to the 1992 season that made him the highest paid player in baseball (as well as the two home runs he hit at division rival St. Louis on Opening Day 1992, including the game winner in extra innings off Lee Smith) just put unrealistic expectations on him that he had no chance of living up to.
The Mets were desperate to save face after losing Darryl Strawberry to free agency prior to 1991. Bonilla was a local kid from the Bronx, and had helped the Pirates overtake the Mets as the best team in the NL East, leading them to back-to-back division titles. Signing Bonilla was a way to help themselves, and hurt the division rival Pirates, in one fell swoop. Combined with the equally celebrated acquisitions of Bret Saberhagen and Eddie Murray, as well as Vince Coleman the previous year, and the continued presence of Howard Johnson and Dwight Gooden, most people were predicting a return to glory for the Mets.
Of course, it all blew up in their faces, but in reality, it wasn't Bonilla letting them down. No, he wasn't quite the superstar they tried to make him into, but look a little deeper and you see that Saberhagen and Coleman were rarely healthy as Mets. Howard Johnson led the league in HR and RBI in '91, but fell off dramatically after that and was never again the same player. Dwight Gooden was also starting to show that he was no longer the pitcher he once was (before completely self destructing in '94). Throw in a toxic clubhouse (again, looking at you, Vince Coleman), and you had a recipe for disaster.
As for the unusual deferred payment agreement, meh. Again, as the WSJ points out, they used the money they saved by not having to pay Bonilla in 2000 to trade for Mike Hampton and Derek Bell, and sign Todd Zeile, and ended up making the World Series. Good for Bonilla for being shrewd enough to negotiate a buyout like this, and good for Steve Phillips for putting together a championship contender when he had the chance.
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Well said, Joe.
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:01 pm
That's quite a windfall for Bonilla, but the winners of all bizarre, long-term contracts have to be the former owners of the Spirits of St. Louis (ABA) franchise, who, after the ABA-NBA merger, negotiated to obtain television rights in perpetuity. Not bad for a team that no longer exists.
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:29 pm
You're right Joe. Management and fans of poor or underachieving teams always tend to blame their best players. Or at least their highest paid players. Bonilla wasn't bad in '92, but he signed the biggest contract in baseball, he came from a division winner, his BA dropped over 50 points, his R over 40, and his RBI over 30, and the Mets stunk. A perfect storm for hate. It's not his fault he got paid like a superstar when he wasn't one. It may be mostly media-driven but I doubt you'll find many Mets fans who don't have bad feelings for Bobby Bo. And his signing inspired the Yankees' Danny Tartabull signing. Tartabull was another disappointment but if you study the numbers you'll see that he didn't really underplay reasonable expectations. But I feel like Bobby Bo is a curse word to Mets fans whereas most Yankees fans don't think much about Tartabull. Is it just because the Yanks went on to great success in the immediate aftermath? I don't know. I feel like even at the time, Bonilla was hated while Tartabull was just a letdown. Who can trust memory in such things, though?
July 3rd, 2010 at 12:28 am
Very Good points Joe.
Like you said, if you're objective, Bonilla didn't play as poorly as he's depicted. I've followed the Mets for 40 years and one thing I don't like about the fans/media is they tend to find a "whipping boy" or a "scapegoat" to blame when things go bad. Sometimes it's a big money contract, sometimes a bad trade, sometimes it's personality, sometimes there's a subtle underlying racial component.
I think the Mets just were in a state of total panic and chaos when they signed Bonilla. There were signs that the team was in trouble by the end of 1990 but they just kind of ignored them and let Strawberry go. The team was already one of the worst defensive teams in baseball and then they signed a very overrated Vince Coleman. What they really should have done was resign Strawberry and Cone (no pun intended).
I think the first big problem with Bonilla was with the contract. I think it was something like 5 years $27 million dollars which was just an insane amount of money for a baseball contract at the time.. He became the highest paid player when he was probably about the 20th best player in baseball. The fans didn't really care about reality they wanted an MVP type player.
The second big problem was that Bonilla was essentially a DH but the Mets had to find someplace for him to play so they put him in RF. This became IMO the worst defensive outfield I've ever seen with Coleman in Left, Howard Johnson in Center and Bonilla in right. To compound things the rest of the team wasn't very good on defense either. They had Magadan/Donnels at third, Pecota/Schofield at Short, a 38 year old Willie Randolph at second a 36 year Eddie Murray at first and Mackey Sasser/Todd Hundley behind the plate. It's definitely one of the worst defensive teams I ever saw. Schofield was probably the only good defensive player that year.
The third major problem was the Mets media wagon really hyped this team to no end so when the team played poorly, the fans naturally were upset and frustrated.
When Bonilla struggled in 1992 the fans let him have it. Also, Bonilla was going from a very good hitter's park to a pitcher's park so that had an effect on his stats.
During the off-season the book "The worst team money could buy" came out by Bob Klapish. Bonilla confronted him in the locker room on t.v. which made Bonilla look like a bully and a punk.
In 1993, the team was in total Chaos and even though Bonilla started to play well, the fans didn't care. I think at one point he was wearing ear plugs up at bat. He was actually very good with the bat from 1993-1995 and I never really understood why they traded him in 1995, just when he was at his offensive peak with the Mets.
But like you said if your objective he was pretty productive. He had 11.1 WAR during his '92-95 stint and that's during the strike of '94-95. If he didn't have that negative WAR in 1999, his 11.1 would be good for 22nd place all time among Mets' position players.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:10 am
Am I missing something here? If you owe someone $5.9M why not just cut him and pay him rather than cost your employer almost $30M by paying him until he's in his 70s? If you invested the $5.9M for the 10 years before paying him would you expect it to appreciate 400% in that time? Perhaps ol' Stevie mistook Bobby B for an ESPN intern.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:31 am
If you assume the Wilpons had the $5.9 million at the time, and chose either to put it back into the team or invest it elsewhere rather than pay it to Bonilla, I think they'd have had to average around 9% a year to come out ahead on the deal in the long run (you would continue to earn interest even after the annual payments begin). At the time, that must have seemed plausible. In practice, the economic downturn and the Madoff business means the Wilpons almost certainly lost badly on the deal, although 1.1 million a year isn't really an amount they'd notice on the Mets payroll.
And Bonilla was a good player in his first stint with the Mets. Unfortunately he came to camp out of shape in his first season, had a poor year, and permanently poisoned the well in terms of his image. But after that he was quite productive. His second stint was another story.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:50 am
I never understood why they got him again in 1999. The fans hated him and thing went from bad to worse.
I never understood why the traded him in 1995, right at the time he was having his best year as a Met with a 160ops+. And then they traded Saberhagen in 1995 while he had a 121era+.
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:27 am
I remember this happening at the time. I was a kid, but I remember thinking what a sweet deal it was for Bonilla and how little sense it made for the Mets. Perhaps it worked out for them if they were wise with the money, but somehow I doubt that's the case...
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:42 am
Joe - Looking at his career totals isn't an accurate comparison since it includes his early years before he was any good and his decline years. Here are his OPS+ numbers from the 4 years before joining the Mets:
1988: 143
1989: 145
1990: 132
1991: 149
And now his numbers with the Mets:
1992: 121
1993: 132
1994: 128
1995: 160 (half-year before being traded)
He was still a good player for the Mets, but I think it's fair to conclude that he was better with the Pirates. Plus, he was much healthier with the Pirates, playing between 157-163 games in 1988-1991. With the Mets, he missed 34 games his first year and 23 his second. He was generally healthy his last two seasons with the Mets but they were both shortened seasons due to the strike and being traded mid-season.
July 3rd, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Hmm...Bonilla is being paid 30 mil NOT to play for the Mets?
Heck, I'd not play for the Mets for a whole lot less!
July 4th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
One reason that I think Bonilla's career in 1993 and beyond is not highly regarded is as a result of the accomplishments of the Pirates' other "Killer B" of the late 1980s/early 1990s after both departed when they became free agents following the 1992 season. We know now that there were complicating reasons for Barry Bonds' continued high performance as a Giant, but in the mid-1990s, this caused people to consider Bonilla to be a disappointment.
July 6th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
The Mets traded Bonilla (and Saberhagen) in 1995 because they finally saw the reality that the team as it had been comprised was a failed experiment, and they needed to fully commit to rebuilding. They were shedding high priced veterans and stockpiling young talent. They got Alex Ochoa in the Bonilla trade, who was thought to be a can't-miss 5-tool prospect, specifically because Bonilla was having such a good season, and his trade value was as high as it would ever be.
As for Tartabull not suffering the same fate as Bonilla in the eyes of New York fans even though their performances were similar, certainly, Yankee fans can be more forgiving of Tartabull because of the franchise's success. They won 88 games and finished in 2nd place in '93, had the best record in the AL before the strike ruined the rest of the season in '94, and won the AL Wild Card in '95 before starting their run of 4 championships in 5 seasons in '96. If the Mets had enjoyed the same success after signing Bonilla, their fans would be more forgiving of him, too.