Bobby Bonilla will make more in base salary in 2020 than Patrick Mahomes

Bobby Bonilla gets paid more handsomely than Patrick Mahomes these days.

If you want to make the big bucks, go play in the MLB.

Because there is no salary cap in baseball, good to even marginal players can make heaping sums of cash. Playing 162 games, 81 of them at home and having pretty sweet television deals with their local RSNs are a big reason teams like the New York Mets can still keep paying Bobby Bonilla years after he retired. Happy Bobby Bonilla Day, planet earth! July 1 will forever be his holiday.

At the beginning of Q3 ever year, Bonilla takes home a little north of $1 million to not play baseball for the Mets. Bruce Sutter gets similar checks to not play for the Atlanta Braves, but that’s thankfully coming to an end next year. But if you want to see how crazy MLB deferred payments can get, check out this graphic ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted out on Bobby Bonilla Day 2020.

The “Mets pay former outfielder Bobby Bonilla $1.143 million today, as they owe him each July 1 through the year 2035. The Chiefs are scheduled to pay Patrick Mahomes in base salary this season $825,000.” Patrick Mahomes will get a new contract by the Kansas City Chiefs here soon, but this is nothing short of an absolute embarrassment and the epitome of New York dysfunction.

Patrick Mahomes won’t make as much in base salary in 2020 as Bobby Bonilla.

Besides Mahomes being the best player in the NFL and the quarterback of the reigning Super Bowl champion, you want to hear something that’ll really make your blood boil. Guess who was teammates with Bonilla on the 1999 Mets? Former MLB journeyman relief pitcher Pat Mahomes, the father of the Kansas City quarterback.

Mahomes played 11 years in the big leagues, primarily with the Minnesota Twins in the early-to-mid-1990s. While one would think his five years in the Twin Cities would make Minnesota Mahomes’ favorite big league club, he associates his father’s career most closely with The Amazin’s. The 1999 and 2000 Mets were without question some of the best teams in baseball.

For a guy who hasn’t played for a team this century to be paid more money in base salary than the face of the NFL entering the 2020s is patently ridiculous. Then again, baseball has the best players’ union in professional sports and fully-guaranteed contracts are a pretty sweet thing. Mahomes will be the highest paid player in football in the next 12 months, but good lord!

Bonilla making six figures more in base salary than Mahomes in 2020 is mind-boggling.