[Marcellus]

Ok I am usually against this sort of thing (posting a story from a pay sight) but this story is just too good not to share. -

Move over, Bobby Bonilla: The Braves have been paying Bruce Sutter for 30 years thanks to a ludicrous contract



It was the​ winter of 1984. The​ Atlanta Braves,​ fresh off an 80-82 season, decided​ to strike​ while​ the​​ iron was mostly lukewarm, if you’re being charitable. Anchoring their bullpen was the perfectly suitable committee of Gene Garber, Steve Bedrosian, and Donnie Moore; each registered 28 or more Games Finished and had double-digit save totals. But for some reason, the Braves wanted more. They wanted Bruce Sutter.

Sutter was a closer in an era when the role was still emerging. He spent the 1984 season anchoring the bullpen of the St. Louis Cardinals, leading the league in Games Finished with 63 and amassing a then-record-tying 45 saves while pitching a now unheard of 122.2 IP. He finished sixth in MVP voting and third in Cy Young balloting. He was paid handsomely for his services, too — his $975,000 salary made him one of the highest paid players at the time. As he entered free agency that offseason, he expected to cash in even bigger. And the Braves were willing to meet his demands.

When the ink dried on the contract, the basic terms gave Sutter $9.1 million over six years, entering his age-32 season for, again, a team which failed to win half its games the year prior. The length of the contract was absurd at the time, but so was the amount, given the context. His salary — not accounting for some interesting structuring which we’ll get to — was the 10th highest in the Majors in 1985, behind guys like George Foster, Gary Carter, and Keith Hernandez. (Remember when the Mets spent money?) He was the second-highest paid pitcher in the game, only behind José DeLeón (really). Even if things had gone as planned, it would’ve been a crazy, terrible signing by the Braves.

Things didn’t go as planned. But that wasn’t even the worst part.

Over the course of his six-year deal, Sutter collected 40 saves, total, while sporting a 4.55 ERA. He was worth, collectively, -0.3 bWAR, and at no point during his Braves career did he turn in an above-replacement-level season as a pitcher. He was, shockingly, worth more as a batter: he put up a 0.0 bWAR line as a Brave, turning in a career-high 0.1 bWAR in 1988, when he went 0-for-1 with a walk and a strikeout. Injuries cost him his 1987 season and he was so bad in 1988 that he just hung them up. As contracts go, Sutter’s Braves deal was historically bad. The Braves destiny suffered a similar fate — over the six years of Sutter’s contract, the Braves’ best season (1986) ended with a 72-89 record. The other five seasons were all ones with 90 or more losses — one of 92, two of 96, one of 97, and a laughably bad 54-106 in 1988. Sutter, perhaps, retired out of embarrassment.

And again, that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was that Sutter decided to use his big free agency contract as a financial planning opportunity. Rather than get all of that $9.1 million paid out in relatively even amounts per year, Sutter insisted that his money be deferred. Both the Braves and the Cardinals agreed to the demands of the former Cy Young winner and future Hall of Famer. In the end, the Braves were the ones who offered more money — about $9 million over 6 to the Cardinals’ $7 million over 5, per The New York Times — and an absolutely whackadoo structure that could only be attributed to irrational exuberance.

First, Sutter was only paid about $750,000 per year while under the Braves’ control. For the thirty years after he retired — 30!!! — the Braves agreed to pay him no less than $1.12 million per year, and potentially more if interest rates spiked above a negotiated floor of 12.3 percent. (They haven’t.) That ends in 2021, and it’s only 2018, so Bruce Sutter, at some point this year, received or will receive a check for $1.12 million for his 112 games of sub-replacement baseball as an Atlanta Brave. On July 1, the New York Mets will pay Bobby Bonilla about $1 million to not play for them. As that date approaches, the Mets become a punchline — and punching bag — for beat writers near and far. And yet, at some point during this same calendar year, the Atlanta Braves will pay Bruce Sutter about the same amount.

But wait: there’s more.

Typically, when a player signs a multiyear contract, the total is paid out over the course of that contract in the form of annual salaries. That’s the case even when money is deferred; until the money is earned, there’s nothing to defer. In the case of Sutter, that means he shouldn’t have gotten the full $9.1 million (plus interest); he retired four years into the six year contact. But Sutter’s contract wasn’t typical.

For some reason, the Braves agreed to pay Sutter the full $9.1 million up front — think of it as a signing bonus of sorts — but then deferred the whole amount. If you do a little bit of math, you’ll realize that 12.3 percent of $9.1 million is $1.12 million, which makes sense. But what about the $750,000 he got during the six years of the contract? Those, too, were interest payments — the Braves agreed to pay him approximately 8 percent of the deferred amount during the first six years. As a pretty funny, and obviously unintended side effect, Sutter ended up getting his negotiated “salary” in both 1989 and 1990, even though he was retired.

And because all of the money he’s earned to date (and will earn through 2021) is interest, that $9.1 million in principal has, to date, gone unpaid. That’s right: it was deferred until 2022. Four years from now, Bruce Sutter will be a 69-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher who last pitched in 1988 who, unlike Bobby Bonilla, will be on the receiving end of a $9.1 million check from the Atlanta Braves.

In total, Sutter will earn north of $45 million for his three years being terrible as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Bobby Bonilla, eat your heart out.

Holy shit Sutter was genius and the Braves were stupid (almost the Cardinals).