Bobby Bonilla visited Camden Yards to make sure the Orioles didn't forget they owe him and Chris Davis some money

Every year, the New York Mets are subject to some amount of online ridicule when July 1st arrives, and everyone knows they have to cut a check for $1.19 million to Bobby Bonilla. It's been going on for so long and will continue to go on for so many more years that the day that this famous deferred payment is due is semi-affectionately known as Bobby Bonilla Day. Funnily enough, the Mets are not the only team that celebrates Bobby Bonilla Day, the Baltimore Orioles also pay Bonilla every single year on July first. This year, Bonilla showed up to Camden Yards to take in the Orioles game against the White Sox and serve as a physical reminder that he's still on the payroll.

This is among the last Bobby Bonilla days that the Orioles will be celebrating as his contract deferrals end after 2028. He will then continue to receive payment from the Mets until 2035.

The Orioles will be paying Chris Davis until 2037

2028 won't mark the end of the Orioles and their deferred payments, as they will continue to pay Chris Davis through the 2027 season and Alex Cobb through the 2032 season.

These payments are interesting. The Chris Davis contract is brought up more often and is frequently lamented, and unfortunately a lot of lamenting gets directed at Davis in the form of online harassment to the point where Davis has described feeling nervous to interact with Orioles fans after his time on the team ended.

The thing is that the Orioles have nobody to blame but themselves for the Davis contract fiasco. Davis signed a seven-year contract in 2016. That contract paid him $23 million annually, which is a lot for a regular person, and it felt like a lot as Davis' performance took a nose dive, but as far as baseball contracts go, it's pretty tame.

When Davis announced his retirement in 2021, there were just two years left on the deal. The Orioles were running an incredibly low payroll and not even trying to win. They could have easily just paid Davis' full contract over the next two years, and it really wouldn't have affected their team building at all.

However, John Angelos wanted to squeeze every last drop of profit out of the team in his final years as the owner, and Davis' money cut into the Orioles' profit. So they restructured the contract so that it would stretch out to 2037 and the Angelos family could enjoy one of the cheapest-run and most profitable teams in baseball for the next two years before selling the team.

The nice thing is that with the new ownership group in place, they are willing to spend to a point where the $3.5 million owed to Davis every year for the next seven years and the $1.4 million for the five years after that is not that big of a deal. If the Orioles need to get a free agent or bring in an expensive player via trade, it's not likely that the Davis money will stop them from doing so. At this point, it's just trivia and an annual connection to a really fun player who deserves more love than he gets.

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