Los Angeles Angels and Anthony Rendon Negotiate Contract Termination
The Los Angeles Angels and third baseman Anthony Rendon are in talks to terminate the final year of his contract, a move that could end a seven-year, $245 million deal that didn’t meet expectations for the team.
Rendon, who spent the entire 2025 season recovering from hip surgery, is expected to retire.
The 35-year-old player is owed $38 million in 2026. Although a possible buyout of that remaining money has not been finalized, and situations like this can get complicated, the expectation is that Rendon will defer at least part of that money, which will give the team more financial flexibility to address needs this offseason.Anthony Rendon would be close to retiring if he and the Angels reach an agreement to terminate the last year of his seven-year, $245 million contract. Rendon has only participated in 205 of 810 games in the last five seasons due to injuries.
The Angels made Rendon the highest-paid third baseman in the game in December 2019, after seeing him shine with the Washington Nationals, who were then World Series champions. If the Angels and Rendon’s agent, Scott Boras, manage to finalize the termination, he will have played only a quarter of the Angels’ games during the term of that contract, accumulating 3.7 wins above replacement (fWAR) according to FanGraphs.
Selected in the first round by Rice University in 2011, Rendon established himself as one of the best all-around players in the game with a rising group in Washington. He was a hitting genius and a talented defender, and from 2016 to 2019 only nine position players recorded more fWAR.
Rendon had a .299/.384/.528 average in that four-year period. His final season with the Nationals saw him finish third in the National League MVP voting after posting a 1.010 OPS, the highest of his career, along with 34 home runs and 126 RBIs, the most in the league, as he became a star in a postseason run that ended with the franchise’s first title.
With the focus on him, Rendon’s publicly limited interest in baseball, he often admitted that it is not his main priority, that it is simply a job, and that he does not care about praise or attention, became an endearing part of his personality. Over the years, it became a referendum on his lack of productivity.
Rendon looked a lot like himself during a 2020 season that was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It turned out to be the last time the Angels experienced anything close to Rendon’s best. In the following four years, he batted just .231/.329/.336 while participating in 205 of 648 possible games. Injuries to his left groin, left knee, left thigh, left shin, left oblique, lower back, both wrists, and both hips sent him to the injured list.
The final blow came on February 12, 2025, when the Angels announced at the start of spring training that Rendon would undergo hip surgery and miss the season. Rendon spent the entire season away from the team, mainly rehabilitating near his home in Houston. His last home run with the team occurred on July 1, 2023. He never played in more than 58 games in a season.
The Rendon contract coincided with Mike Trout suffering a similar series of bad luck with injuries. The lack of availability of those two players, by far the highest paid on the team, along with the general lack of depth throughout the roster, only further accentuated the Angels’ downfall despite the emergence of Shohei Ohtani as a two-way phenomenon.
The Angels haven’t reached the playoffs since 2014 and haven’t won a playoff game since 2009. The 2025 season marked their tenth consecutive season with a sub-.500 record. Kurt Suzuki, Rendon’s teammate on the 2019 Nationals, has been named the Angels’ manager, the team’s sixth in eight years.
Soon, at least, they will be able to move on to third base.
