Atlanta Braves have their own version of the Bobby Bonilla contract
By John Buhler
Bruce Sutter is the Atlanta Braves’ version of the Bobby Bonilla contract.
When you don’t know what you’re doing, bad things tend to happen.
Prior to Bobby Cox replacing Russ Nixon as the team’s skipper, the Atlanta Braves were a terrible National League franchise for much of their tenure after relocating from Milwaukee in the mid-1960s. Atlanta won the NL West twice from 1969 to 1990. Though the Braves made up for it in a big way in the 1990s to mid-2000s, this team is still paying Bruce Sutter heaping sums of cash.
Yes, the Braves have their own version of the Bobby Bonilla annuity. It’s not discussed as often enough as the one the former All-Star has with the New York Mets, but it’s just as bad. While Bonilla makes $1.143 million today to not play for the Amazin’s, Sutter has been paid by the Braves annually to not play baseball for them for over 30 years! How did this happen?
Back in 1985, the 1979 NL Cy Young Award winner and six-time NL All-Star with the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals signed a six-year deal worth $9.1 million. While Sutter is one of the 10 greatest closers in MLB history, he was essentially washed at that point, playing for a deplorably bad Braves team that all it had going for it was two-time NL MVP outfielder Dale Murphy.
The Bruce Sutter annuity is outrageous and thankfully it ends in 2021.
Sutter only played four forgettable years with the Braves before retiring after the 1988 MLB season. Since the dumb 1980s Atlanta Braves agreed to pay the $9.1 million deal in full, they agreed to pay Sutter deferred payments of no less than $1.12 million through 2021. Keep in mind he only made roughly $750,000 in annual salary during his four years playing badly for the Braves.
Once Cox came back over to the Braves organization after a successful stint managing the Toronto Blue Jays and former general manager John Schuerholz came over from the Kansas City Royals in 1990, the Braves stopped doing dumb things and started winning division titles like their lives depended on it. It’s funny. Kansas City played Toronto in the ALCS in the same 1985 season.
The reason we don’t talk about Sutter’s deferred payments with the Braves as much as we do about Bonilla’s annual July 1 payments are threefold. One, New York is a bigger media market than Atlanta. Two, the Braves have been the better run franchise for the last 30 years than the Mets. And three, Sutter has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Bonilla never will.
In a year, the Braves will stop paying for a huge mistake it made during the Reagan Administration.