Former Mets GM Steve Phillips jokes about Bobby Bonilla after Shohei Ohtani receives $700 million deal

Former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips may have been getting Bobby Bonilla flashbacks when he heard the Los Angeles Dodgers had signed star slugger/pitcher Shohei Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million deal. On Monday, Phillips jokingly tweeted that the Dodgers didn’t speak with him about deferring some of the money in Ohtani’s massive contract.

“I want to clarify reports that the @Dodgers consulted with me before giving all of the deferred comp to Shohei Ohtani,” Phillips posted on X. “They did not. But I am sure glad they did it, because it takes me off the hook for Bobby Bonilla. July 1, 2024 just got way better for me.”

When Bonilla parted ways with the Mets following the 1999 season, the Mets still owed him $5.9 million. As a result, Bonilla and his agent offered the Mets the right to defer payment for a decade and instead would pay him $1.19 million annually beginning in 2011 and ending in 2035. The value ended up totaling $29.8 million, and the Mets accepted that deal.

The Wilpon family owned the Mets at the time and thought that the deal would be more fruitful since they had lucrative investments with Bernie Madoff. However, Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme resulted in the Wilpons paying back $162 million that they received from the arrangement.

Ohtani is slated to receive $700 million over the course of his contract with the Dodgers. Some of that money will be deferred in an interest-free loan, while the Mets were forced to pay eight percent interest to Bonilla.