The Angels and third baseman Anthony Rendon are discussing a buyout plan with Rendon expected to retire, reports Alden González of ESPN. Rendon’s seven-year, $245MM deal still has one year and $38MM remaining.
Rendon’s deal has been a punchline for a long time now and will certainly go down as one of the biggest busts of this era, or perhaps even of all time. The Angels have gotten almost no return on their massive investment. Rendon was still a very good player in the first year of the pact, but that happened to be the 202o season, which was shortened to just 60 games on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Rendon has been largely injured. Even when he has been able to take the field, he hasn’t been terribly useful.
More to come.
Either way, Rendon swindled that money from the Angels.
You realize that teams aren’t exactly innocent when they sign players to ridiculous contracts and the player turns out not being worthy of that money?
Implying the Angels were “guilty” , the opposite of “innocent”, seems inappropriate. They paid market value for a guy that was a 6 WAR player the previous 3 seasons and relatively healthy. At age 30 you evict their to be done decline towards the end of a long contract but not immediately.
Yeah-Angels got scammed. It’s too bad b/c he earned a big deal as consistent star of a WS winner and then didn’t care to reward the club for faith in his ability.
They got scammed eh? This seems like of an overly simplistic comment.
Call it as you wish no worries. Some things like this aren’t overly complicated.
Look the fact of the matter is the Angels gave 245 million bucks to a guy who admitted he really hated playing baseball. So no matter what you call it I think we can all admit it was really stupid and completely lacked any research of the player at all. He was just something shiny they wanted for their fantasy team.
Arte did. I’m pretty sure nobody thought signing Rendon to any decent / long contract was a good idea. I remember hearing rumors he was leaning towards retirement after the end of his Washington contract.
Why would there be talks of Rendon retiring after a 146 game 6 WAR season? I heard nothing of the sort.
Well the Rangers and Dodgers both made long term offers, and both have won the WS since, so I wouldn’t say nobody thought it was a good idea. (And those were just the ones we know about.)
Everyone thought it was an incredibly good signing when it happened and in 2020 it looked like it would be after a 150 OPS+ and 2.2 WAR in that shortened season.
Then in 2021 he suffered a hip injury that is usually a death knell for an athlete in any sport. He kept trying to play even after the surgery which is a testament to how much he wanted to play.
Rendon wasn’t exactly “leaning towards retirement” in the 2019-2020 offseason.
Many people including me found his combination of 2019-2020 offseason comments suggesting he’d be out of baseball before turning 36 and his decision not to play for the Dodgers peculiar for an otherwise Championship caliber player.
The angels swindled themselves with so many bad deals over the years
Ridiculous. He might not be the friendliest most dedicated player, but he didn’t try to get hurt, and he tried to figure it out. There have been numerous players over the years who got hurt and couldn’t live up to expectations, but just because he said his family is more important than baseball he gets extra criticism. Don’t hear that for the players who yak on and on about how some ethereal being has blessed their lives, but living his family is somehow wrong.
How do you figure? In his first season with the Angels he was very good. Only Ramirez was better at 3B. Then he suffered a hip injury in 2021 and has had surgeries on both of his hips since then. Each one of those surgeries would end your career as an athlete and he kept trying to come back. He got hit by a pitch in 2022 and had to have surgery. He had a fractured tibia in 2023. He tried to return even though that bone carries much of your weight. Running must have been excruciating. It is no surprise that he was unable to return from this last hip surgery in 2025. What was a surprise was that he kept trying.
People that call into question the toughness of people going through things that would have kept the keyboard warriors in their bed crying for their mommas are ….
Well, you fill in the negative adjective.
Part of the system. Players, agents, teams, owners, media and to lesser extent, fans
Does that mean they could save money ?
Maybe but it could just be paying the final amount in installments. I just don’t see what’s in it for Rendon since it’s the last year of the deal. I guess he doesn’t have to go through the motions. They will certainly release him quick if he’s bad.
It might be that Rendon simply doesnt want to join the team at home and in travel. Maybe he is willing to give back some millions to just end it.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the players union will go for that. It’s probably just making the payments more palatable.
It depends on what Rendon is willing to take in a settlement to retire. He is well within his rights to say pay me.
The Angels may have insurance on him and they get paid if he doesn’t play at all that year. If he retires they do not get that insurance money.
I wish I had enough athletic ability to score a nice contract and then milk it and retire young. I think I played more games in MLB the last 3 years than Rendon.
At least just as many…
Rendon played in 100 games after having a hip surgery which normally ends athletic careers and then a broken leg. I doubt you played that many games in MLB The Show. which is as close as you got to a major league field.
Possibly the worst MLB contract ever per value received by the team.
Crazy that both Rendon and Strasburg signed identical 7/245m contracts only 4 days apart after playing for the same team. Rendon hit 22 homeruns, Strasburg pitched 31 innings.
Nationals knew something we didn’t know
Boras knew something he didn’t fully disclose. Many of his clients are injured
If the Nats knew something they would not have signed Strasburg.
I’d still put Stephen Strasburg as the worst. At least Rendon contributed SOMETHING. Chris Davis is probably worse as well.
By any team…
Strasburg has entered the chat.
The end of an error!
Congrats on the retirement, you’ll now be able to spend your money on something you actually like to do….IE not baseball.
He’s been doing that for years
What guy that Redon it! $245 mill. works out to $224,000 per plate appearance and $11.1 million per home run. What a bargain!
Fun fact, 1 of those HRs came from the left side of the plate in his only plate appearance from the left side where he took a swing. 2 total plate appearances from that side.
Why was he batting lefty? Is it a joke I don’t realize
Yeah, nice gig.
Strasburg made 7.9m for each inning pitched and 1.475m for each batter faced.
The Nats probably had the best long-term pitching contract in Scherzer and the worst in Strasburg paying at the same time.
Angels in play for Bregman….?lol.
Thus guy seems to hate baseball as much as Jackson Merrill loves it. Just a strange situation all around.
If this amounts to a long-term deferrel, it could possibly mean the Angels will aggressively go full throttle in to Hot Stove activity. I can see the Angels being aggressive in position player pursuits and adding another two arms for the rotation. They could be trading from a surplus of young minor leaguers. The Angels actually have a plethora of interesting arms in the lower minors that are at least 2 years away from making a big impact.
One Arm. The plan is to use Kikuchi, Soriano and Detmers. They added Rodriguez, and there are some half-assed options in the minors, so they should only need one.
I’d take the payout deferred over several years. Good retirement plan and it’s legal in MLB.
Worst contract of all time.
A whopping 3.9 WAR in 5 seasons with the Angels
Don’t forget to include this year. Its a six year contract.
Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $38M.
Dear lord please let this come true
Is this the beginning of the Angels making smarter baseball moves?
The knock on Rendon even before he was drafted was that he was “injury prone” and would not play, obvious he didn’t enjoy the game but was smart enough to give one years effort to get a lifetime contract. Angels need to erase his name from their records as if he never existed because he didn’t for them.
Wait….I always enjoyed predicting how many games he would play before the he suffered his season ending injury ! Now you got big shoes to fill Kris Bryant
Kris Bryant come on down!
If Rendon retires before the season begins and he is paid as a consultant rather than a player, does his salary still count for the luxury tax?
Nope.
He would be paid like a government consultant in that case!
Any salary that is part of the settlement is included in the teams CBT calculations. It doesn’t matter if it is deferred or if he does something else for the team for that money. Only if he forgoes any payment from the team is it not part of their CBT calculations.
final #s with the angels
(257 games)
22 hr, 125 rbi, .242 avg, 112 runs, 224 hits
almost a full million $ for every game he played as an angel, $1.1mil for every hit, $2mil for every rbi, $11.1 mil for every hr he hit
sweet baby jesus
Holy.
I’m pretty sure the Carlos Estevez earned around 11 million.
JFC, the Rendon contract makes me feel soooo much better about the Chris Davis contract.
Dumpster fires look at the Rendon contract and say “DAMN SON.”
It would be cool if Rendon gives the Angels back some of that money.
You know, the Angels get a lot of rightly deserved grief for horribly mismanaging the last 15ish years, it’s all deserved. But between Hamilton, Pujols, and Rendon they signed 22 years worth of contracts on elite caliber players, and got 3 total years of star performance. You expect back-end decline on these contracts, but that’s also just stupid-bad luck. Between that, two pitchers literally dying, and Trout’s injury decline starting the very moment Ohtani became a superstar, this team just feels cursed.
It’s all the clubs owners fault…
Either way Arte is paying Rendon not to play.
At the time of the deal, the narrative on Rendon was wholly different. Every FA deal of note is an overpay, but Rendon was an incredibly consistent and valuable player. Good defense; a very good bat and a level of real consistency…folks even called him a gamer and a winner.
Today, his name is Mudd.
Do nothing and get millions. Do nothing and get less millions. Just drive your car in everyday and watch a ballgame from the dugout. Why would he do this? I guess that’s chump change when you have so much.
That contract might be the worst ever. There’s been some bad ones over the years but wow this one was bad.
Rendon’s Angels highlight video will consist of one feat: hitting a home run left-handed off Rays position player Brett Phillips during Reid Detmer’s no-hitter.
Does this mean that he’ll wear an Angels hat or the Nationals logo on his Hall of Fame plaque?
The 2019 Nationals truly sold their souls to defeat the Astros
Just go away
But don’t go away mad.
Rendon, Hamilton, Trout, Pujols, Upton. Over 1 billion dollars in bad contracts. All for the same team. All in the last 15 years. Yikes.
And people give the Rockies grief! (well they deserve most of it, but still)
I was going to add CJ Wilson to the list but checked him out before doing so. He doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with these guys
I would probably be incredibly resentful to both the front office and Rendon if this occurred on my team. But the Angels are such a poorly run organization that I can’t help but laugh
Thank God
LOL
Rendon can’t play. He has had a surgery on both hips that ends baseball careers after just one. I have not seen him in any appearances lately, but it would be miraculous if he is walking without a pronounced limp.
Go spend time with Amanda and the kids and take whatever buyout the Angels will give you to retire.
Hopefully the Angels are getting some kind of insurance relief, if they had it.
It would be great to recoup even a fraction of next seasons salary to put towards FA additions to fill in the many needs this club needs.
Anthony Rendon’s retirement ceremony:
Today (today, today)
I consider myself (self, self)
The luckiest man on the face of the Earth (ch-ching, ch-ching).
A lot of mid takes here, as is expected.
Rendon produced at an elite level for years before signing his contract and then got injured.
How many players have it go the other way? How many get injured before they get a chance to sign that but contact? How many provide tens of millions of dollars worth of production to their teams while getting paid relative peanuts?
Way don’t we hear comments like
“The team swindled that performance from the player”?
Or, “I wish I had enough athletic ability for a team to benefit off my using my body up for them”?
Or “Probably the worst contract ever for a player”?
And as to the dumb idea Rendon hates baseball. What he said was that his family and faith are more important to him than baseball. I, as an atheist, think faith is pretty dumb, but it makes sense, I think, to value your family more than your career. I think, and I hope, most everyone hating on Rendon for it, feels the same.
Already drinking for the holidays, eh?
It would appear so…
Mid take
GOATed name, PR.
OI OI OI!!!
Calm down, Anthony.
Rendon said baseball is not a priority or a passion for him, but a way to make a living. He also said there should be fewer games (quote: We need to shorten that bad boy.”).The “Rendon hates baseball” stuff comes from noted voice of reason Jonathan Papelbon, who said:
“I can definitely confirm Carrabis here…
Played with Rendon and literally hates baseball. Yeah it’s long isn’t that what you signed up for??? Just tell the team you want to play half the season and give back half your salary!!!!!”
Can the Angels buy out Trout’s remaining contract as well?
And also have a new owner buy out the current owner? 🤔
This guy is coming in for a lot of hate. Can people explain why? There are plenty of bad contracts, and injuries play a roll in most of them.
Guys a legend. Made more millions than he had hits for the Angels.
Is Jed Hoyer calling to see if he can trade for him? Lolol
3.7 fWAR through the life of the contract is crazy. An answer to, “what does $245M buy you these days?”
Most shocking yet least shocking news of all time
What’s better than getting paid well to do what you love? Nothing.
But a close second is getting paid extremely well to not to something you don’t love.
Hey khris meet Anthony
Bryant next ?
After the Nats won it all in 2019 who would have imagined that for the rest of their careers Rendon would total 3.9 BWAR and Strasburg -0.5.
They were something else during that title run.
When Rendon played for Washington he stated that baseball games are “long and boring” and he doesn’t enjoy watching. He has stated that baseball is just a job. That was never a way to endear fans who pay his salary. The contract was a crappy joke from day one.
An early Christmas present for Angels fans. Now, we need Arte to sell the team.
Worst contract in MLB history. Dodgers don’t win three titles if this dude takes their offer, which was supposedly much better than the Angels’.
Simply put, things did not turn out well for both sides
Did anyone catch in the article where they typed 202o, they have an o instead of a zero
Will free up money for Arte to eff it up again.
He seemed to genuinely fleece the angels of the entire contract, good riddance. Completely tainted his legacy by being a cry baby ahout losing interest after getting paid 35 mill a season
The Dodgers are the Varsity. The Angels are the JV team. Arte Moreno is a clown owner.
Let’s not forget the Varsity was interested in signing him. Thankfully, he hated the LA lifestyle.
This should serve as a cautionary tale of why teams should probably explore short-term big money deals over long term deals that almost never payoff.
The Rangers probably dodged the biggest bullet in free agency ever by not signing him
At this point wouldn’t he just say keep the change Artie ? Calling 38 million change is crazy to 99.9% of us. What do you call the rest of contract. Smh I sincerely don’t know what to call it but remember it takes 2 to tango or something like that.
Finally!
J D Drew and Jacob Ellisbury come to mind guys who wanted to get paid, but didn’t want to play. Good riddance, and hopefully the last we hear of him.