when teams discuss what their player spending budget will be, it is not with regard to any calendar or fiscal year, but to a baseball season.  there is an attempt to match player expenses to the baseball season. that player spending budget can be recorded in any way a team wants because it is for "internal" purposes only (not for tax, not subject to GAAP or any outside regulation).  if you were to pick up some stl cardinals lp financial statements they may not necessarily reflect the budget as it is discussed in the news as those financial statements were prepared for tax purposes and for a fiscal year that may not match the baseball season.  if you look at mlb corporation prepared salary lists they may also be different because mlb calculates things according to a specific formula and with a specific purpose in mind.  we can disregard those lists as we are only concerned with what dewitt is willing to spend to put on a team on the field in 2008 (...what i am referring to as the player spending budget).

as to your question...what makes sense for tax purposes is irrelevant for our purposes.  i am not entirely sure how it is recorded for tax purposes.  if the bonus has already been paid in a lump sump, then for player spending budget purposes it should be counted for the 2008 baseball season in its entirety.  it is the most logical matching of expenses to the baseball season.  pro-rating it in that situation is just a paper transaction that results in no actual benefit to the team.  an actual benefit would be to actually pay it in two seasons or to defer payment entirely until the second season, so long as no interest/below market interest rates are paid on any deferrals.  as long as you arent spending money you dont have and there are no interest payments, it makes financial sense to defer the payments as long as possible.