This year, I actually learned that there was a Bobby Bonilla in history before Bobby Bonilla took the Bobby Bonilla deal that turned every July 1st into Bobby Bonilla Day.
And it was actually a player for the Atlanta Braves, which is astounding seeing as how as a, for lack of a better term, Braves fan, I did not know about this, as well as the fact that the Braves are among the cheapest teams in the galaxy these days, so it’s doubly amazing to see how they were once wrapped up in a Bobby Bonilla-like arrangement, ever.
But in 1984, the Braves signed reliever Bruce Sutter to a six-year, $9.6M contract, with $4.8M of that deferred, at an interest rate of 13%. And between the years of 1992 and 2022, the Braves paid him $1.12M a year, and I don’t know how and when the interest compounded through the life of repayment, but he was paid $9.1M in 2022, the final installment of the pact; and I don’t know the specific date of the payment, but it should be noted that he also died that same year, and I think it would be ironically funny if the narrative were that he stayed alive long enough to ensure that the cheap-ass Braves paid him his money before he could rest.
Also impressive to me is that within the duration of the repayment plan, the Braves’ ownership had transferred from the free-spending Ted Turner regime, into the stuffy corporate penny-pinching Liberty Media ownership company that as choked the team into this mid-market team, crying poor all the time, caring more about fiscal responsibility to shareholders versus trying to remotely operating a baseball club to victory.
I’m sure Sutter’s contract was an excruciating blight for the Liberty Media bean counters to inherit, and they probably were counting the days of the last 12-13 years of the deal, and probably remains a large part of why the Braves will never play in such deferral tactics, regardless of how effective it is proving to be capable of.
Needless to say, I’m not sure how accurate the math is, since deferred monies have a tendency to be invisible in online payroll records, but Sutter managed to parlay $4.8M into at least $41.58M through a Bobby Bonilla-like payment plan, and seeing as how there was a twelve-year overlap between when Sutter’s payments and the Bonilla’s started, I’m surprised the whole thing didn’t meme out to be Bruce Sutter Day instead.
That’s the strength of the whole LOL Mets meme, I suppose.
Anyway, it’s July 1st, so that obviously means it’s that time of the year again, where a 63-year old Bobby Bonilla receives a $1,193,248 paycheck from the New York Mets because they didn’t want to pay him $5M in 2000 after 141 horrible plate appearances in 1999, and decided that it was more preferable to pay him nearly $36M over 30 years starting a decade later.
And in honor of Bobby Bonilla Day, I take my yearly deep dive into the state of the MLB to try and construct a hypothetical roster of players receiving deferred money, share some stats about them, as well as share all sorts of shade about the practice, the cheapness of the Braves, and other opinionated takes.
In the 2026 season, there are 24 players making deferred money, according to Spotrac, spread between 14 teams. Although the players and teams may differ, this is identical to last season. I was actually excited that it looked like we had landed on a perfect 25 players, since as a numbers fan, I like nice round numbers, and 25 makes a perfect 25-man roster, but realized that it was the man, Bobby Bonilla, getting counted twice, since in addition to the Mets, he’s still also receiving his annual $500K from the Baltimore Orioles, which again, like Sutter, doesn’t get any attention because it’s not an opportunity to clown on the Mets.
These 24 players, are making a combined estimated $69.656M, which would be a higher payroll than four teams’ total payrolls: the Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians, St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Nationals. Notorious cheapskate teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A’s rank two and six places higher, respectively, than Team Bonilla.
However, there is a caveat to this number, which is the fact that five players are still actively playing, which is kind of gray area as far as the point of this yearly exercise is. That being said, if I were to take their salaries out of the equation since this really is supposed to be about the irony of non-players making more than a whole bunch of active ones, the aggregate amount of deferred money to non-players drops down to $44.356M, which eclipses no active teams’ payrolls, falling short by around $9M to the Washington Nationals’ $54M payroll.
Speaking of the Washington Nationals, once again, they remain the organization spending the most in deferred monies, with $15M going to the Thanos of deferred money, in Max Scherzer. However, Scherzer is one of the five active players, so if we’re going on players who aren’t playing anymore, the (dis)honor goes to the Houston Astros who are paying a retired Zack Grienke $12.5M this season.
Regardless of active vs. inactive numbers go, the overall $69M of deferred monies this season is a pretty substantial drop from the year prior which was at $83M. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that Stephen Strasburg’s massive deferred money from the Nationals isn’t showing up this season as deferred, but as retained, and in spite of my general fascination with Bobby Bonilla Day and player contracts, I really have no fucking clue how they work, because Strasburg hasn’t played since 2021, got deferred money in 2020-2022, was classified as active-but-injured between 2022-2024, retained in 2025-2026, and resumes making money from the deferred bucket again starting in 2027, so him alone being back on the list next year will boost next year’s numbers substantially.
Speaking of substantial boosts, one team that is surreptitiously quiet in their participation of deferred money is the Los Angeles Dodgers; they do have a deferred payment this year, in Justin Turner, but seeing as how they’ve committed nearly $2 billion dollars over the last two seasons, people probably expect to see them immediately on these types of lists.
However, the Dodgers have a little bit of time before financial Armageddon hits the organization, with the earliest start of big-ass deferred money being 2028, to my beloved Freddie Freeman, who will begin receiving his first $4M annual payment, regardless of if he’s still on the Dodgers or not or even in baseball altogether, until 2040.
In fact, between 2028 and 2047, the Dodgers will be paying out $406M between nine players in various increments, and it should be noted that among this, not included is the golden boy, Shohei Ohtani, since his numbers are so outlandish, they stand alone, in a crowded field.
Obviously, much was made in baseball circles about Ohtani’s legendary 10-year, $700M contract, but mostly the fact that 97% of it was deferred, and just to refresh everyone’s memory here, the deferred payments begin in 2034, at a clip of $68M a year, annually until 2043.
Almost singlehandedly accounting for this year’s combined deferred monies figure. And in case you’re curious, there is an overlap between 2034 and 2035 where both Bobby Bonilla and Ohtani will be making deferred money; a nice two-year farewell tour for Bobby Bo to do a few victory laps before he passes the torch to Ohtani.
But anyway, on to the list, with the most noteworthy thing being the one thing absent from all prior years of me doing this: a catcher!!!
So without further ado, let’s unveil the 2026 All-Deferred, All-Retired* Starting Lineup, presented by Bobby Bonilla Day
| Pos. | Name | Salary | Team | Retired |
| C | JT Realmuto | $5M | PHI | Active |
| 1B | Chris Davis | $3.5M | BAL | 2020 |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia | $2.5M | BOS | 2019 |
| 3B | Justin Turner | $2M | LAD | 2025 |
| SS | Didi Gregorius | $2.0M | PHI | 2020 |
| OF | Bobby Bonilla | $1.7M | NYM/BAL | 2001 |
| OF | Lorenzo Cain | $1.0M | MIL | 2022 |
| OF | Jason Heyward | $5M | CHC | 2025 |
| DH | Manny Ramirez | $2.1M | BOS | 2011 |
| SP | Zack Grienke | $12.5M | HOU | 2023 |
| SP | Adam Wainwright | $1M | STL | 2023 |
| SP | Madison Bumgarner | $5.0M | ARI | 2023 |
| SP | Max Scherzer | $15M | WAS | Active |
| SP | Alex Cobb | $1.8M | BAL | Active |
| RP | Mark Melancon | $1.0M | SFG | 2022 |
| RP | Adam Ottavino | $500K | NYM | 2025 |
| RP | Bret Saberhagen | $250K | NYM | 2001 |
| RP | Liam Hendriks | $1.5M | CHW | Active |
| Reserves | ||||
| 1B | Jose Abreu | $1.0M | CHW | 2024 |
| UT | Vinny Castilla | $106K | COL | 2006 |
| 3B | Nolan Arenado | $2M | STL | Active |
| OF | Ryan Braun | $1.8M | MIL | 2020 |
| OF | Matt Holliday | $1.4M | STL | 2018 |
*whether by choice or degradation of talent
bold denotes first time on the list
italics denotes first time on the list but not first time with deferred money
Will you look at that, now we’re two players short of a full 25-man roster!
It’s not a proper baseball discussion if there isn’t any possibility to accuse someone of cherry picking, so in spite of my general want to not include active players, I really want to not have another season where the Team Bonilla has no catcher. So that being said, let’s give a round of applause for JT Realmuto for being the first catcher in squad history, even if he is still an active player.
And if I’m going to include one, I went ahead and included them all, but made sure to specify, and to be fair to all the guys who are retired and have earned their places on this hallowed roster, active players get de-prioritized on the depth chart.
Aside from Realmuto, new additions to the list this season are Jason Heyward, Adam Ottavino, Alex Cobb and Liam Hendriks. In the case of Cobb and Hendriks, I may have omitted them in previous years since they’re still active players, but my desperation to field a catcher means they’re added this year. And in the cases of Heyward and Ottavino, neither of them have necessarily declared retirement, per say, but their talents have deteriorated to the point where nobody wants to employ them; which really sucks for Heyward, because I was a huge fan of his, and I never would have anticipated seeing him on this list, like ever, 10-11 years ago.
Baseball truly is a cruel mistress.
Either way, regardless that Heyward hasn’t declared retirement but Matt Holliday has, I’m slotting Heyward as a starter and putting Holliday on the bench, because of my fandom, and in a hypothetical world where Team Bonilla actually played, an outfield of peak Bonilla, Cain and Heyward would be such money.
Speaking of Matt Holliday, once again, he will (likely) be making more money than his son, Jackson Holliday. Figures aren’t available at the time I’m writing this yet, but he’s still a pre-arb player, and he hasn’t progressed as much as Orioles and baseball fans probably have hoped he would, so I don’t think he’s going to be cracking anything beyond $800K, while retired dad is still pulling in $1.4M.
In the likely event that anyone hasn’t seen any previous years I’ve made this list, I had Ryan Braun at third base, on account of the fact that there often weren’t more natural third basemen on prior season’s deferred money lists, except Vinny Castilla, and I guess I always prioritized the dollar amount over actual positions. But with Justin Turner no longer active, he becomes the starting third baseman, and since Ryan Braun isn’t taking the starting left fielder spot from Bonilla over his cold dead body, it’s the bench. The very least slight he can get for falsely accusing his doctor of being antisemitic.
Finally, a parting shout out to both the aforementioned Vinny Castilla and Bret Saberhagen, for being the true elder statesmen of the roster, at 58 and 62 respectively. I don’t care enough to deep dive their deals, but Vinny still has four payments, and Saberhagen has three left. Good on these gangsters for putting themselves into positions where they could get some little retirement plans themselves.
And with that, we wrap up another Bobby Bonilla Day post; and we should enjoy these while they last, because before we know it the 2030s will be upon us, and much like they’ve done to Major League Baseball, the Dodgers are going to come along and put this exercise into an oppressive chokehold, and there will be little other option than for it to start becoming Shohei Ohtani Day.
But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Until next year, Bobby Bonilla Day fans!
