It’s Canada Day across that nation and, derisively, Bobby Bonilla Day in New York – but here in the DMV, we’d like to wish you a Happy(?) Max Scherzer Day!
If you don’t know or didn’t get it, today, July 1, marks the annual payment of $15 million that the Nationals must pay out to Scherzer through 2027 as part of the deferred compensation from his contract, which ended with him in Los Angeles in 2021 but is still hitting the Nats’ bank account.
Scherzer’s deal contained deferred payments of $15 million every July 1, the standard date for deferred payments to hit (as it is usually Day 1 of most fiscal years) in MLB, through 2028, but the Dodgers picked up the final payment when he and Trea Turner were traded to Los Angeles in 2021.
Scherzer’s payment is the biggest and Bonilla, who will receive $1,193,248.20 from the Mets every July 1 through 2035, was the first and most famous to receive deferred money, but it is becoming more and more popular as time goes on – including Shohei Ohtani taking a very large sum to sign with the Dodgers prior to last season.
And, if it makes you feel any better that Scherzer’s $15 million payment is more than any single Nat will make this year – only Nathaniel Lowe, at $10.3 million, is even in eight digits – remember this: Ken Griffey Jr. deferred $57.5 million of salary from the Reds across 16 seasons, from 2028-24, which saw him receive $3,593,750 every year of that span…and last season, the final year of that agreement, he was, the fourth-highest compensated Red, just a couple hundred million behind No. 3.
Also, at least there’s this: the Blue Jays gave Scherzer an actual, tangible, $15.5 million one-year deal last offseason, and he’s only thrown 13 innings for them so far.