Quick hits
Bobby Bonilla one of the highest-paid Mets this year
NEW YORK — Wednesday was Bobby Bonilla Day, the day the Mets pay their former slugger $1.19 million as part of a deferred payment, with interest, from a 2000 buyout. The Mets owed Bonilla $5.9 million and agreed to pay it off with 8% interest from 2011 to 2035.
Deferred contracts are common in baseball, and Bonilla might not even be the highest-paid retired Met in 2020. David Wright is scheduled to make $12 million this year, although terms of his settlement with the Mets are not fully known.
But what is known is that Bonilla will make more money from the Mets this year than about half the roster. With players making no more than 37% of their salaries in a virus-shortened season (and less if the season is shorter than 60 games), only 18 Mets are scheduled to make more than Bonilla’s $1.19 million this year, according to Spotrac.
The player directly above the Bonilla Line is outfielder Jake Marisnick, who was scheduled to make $3.3 million this year. Prorated for 60 games, he’ll make $1.2 million.
Some of the Mets’ most important players will make much less than Bonilla this year. Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Amed Rosario and J.D. Davis were already set to make less than $1 million in a full season; with the short season, Bonilla will outearn them by roughly a multiple of five. (For example, Alonso’s salary will go from $652,000 to $241,000 if MLB finishes 60 games.)
Brandon Nimmo, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman were set to make more than Bonilla this year, but the pandemic and intransigent owners have cut their salaries to sub-Bonilla levels.
No matter who buys the Mets, they’ll inherit more than a decade of payments that the previous owners thought would be covered by the payoffs from Bernie Madoff, who claimed earlier this year that he only has 18 months to live. Bonilla’s payments have 15 years to go.
Angels to pay minor leaguers through August
LOS ANGELES — The Angels have decided to pay minor leaguers a $400-perweek stipend through the end of July, according to a person familiar with the decision but not authorized to speak publicly about it.
The move assures that players in the team’s organization will receive pay for at least four months of a five-month season despite not playing any games this summer. Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that minor league seasons have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minor league regular season typically concludes in early September. The Angels had previously committed to pay their minor leaguers through June. With Wednesday’s decision, 29 of 30 teams have announced their plans regarding minor leaguers. The Arizona Diamondbacks have yet to make an announcement, according to Baseball America.
The Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox had committed to paying minor leaguers $400 a week through the end of August even before the minor league season was canceled this week.
The Reds went further, guaranteeing weekly stipends through Sept. 7. All MLB clubs agreed in March to pay their minor leaguers $400 a week through May.
Seven more SoFi Stadium construction workers test positive for COVID-19
Seven more workers at the SoFi Stadium project in Inglewood have tested positive for COVID-19, according to emails the joint venture overseeing construction at the $5-billion development sent to trade partners in the last week.
Twenty-five workers at the 298-acre site are known to have tested positive since late March, the bulk of the cases coming in the last month.
The emails from Turner-AECOM Hunt reviewed by The Times detailing the most recent positive tests show four of them came from people working on the stadium, two working on the performance venue that shares the same roof and one working on a bridge in the park to the south of the sail-shaped venue.
The emails said one worker was asymptomatic and two others had “minor symptoms,” but didn’t describe the severity of the illness for the four remaining workers. The seven workers were last on site between June 15 and 24.
“All related tools, equipment and facilities that may have been used by the worker within the last week have been cleaned and further disinfecting has been performed,” the emails said, using identical language in each one.
Construction managers have instituted several safety measures as work on the project continued during the pandemic, including mandatory temperature checks for each person entering the site, face coverings, social distancing and requiring workers who fall ill to provide a doctor’s note certifying that they’ve been symptomfree for 72 hours before returning to the project.