The Los Angeles Angels (it’s a baseball team. Sheesh…) are in talks with long-time disappointment third baseman Anthony Rendon about buying out the final year of his contract. Rendon wants to retire, but doesn’t want to forfeit the final year, $38 million bucks of it in his seven-year, $245 million long-time contract that has become an albatross for the Angels and a bonanza for him. Rendon spent the entire 2025 season recovering from hip surgery, as was typical of his Angels tenure. He was paid all the same.
The 35-year-old has been limited to playing in only 205 of a potential 648 games since 2020, due to injuries to his left groin, left knee, left hamstring, left shin, left oblique, lower back, both wrists and both hips. He has never played as many as 60 games in any of the four 162 game seasons. When Rendon was able to play, he wasn’t very good. The Angels had made Rendon the game’s highest-paid third baseman in December 2019, whereupon he performed well in the pandemic-shortened 2020 MLB season (which I don’t think counts) and that was the end of his productivity.
Rendon has famously stated that he doesn’t really like baseball, he just happened to be good at it. It’s just a job to him, not a passionate pursuit that he cares about; he doesn’t care about the accolades or attention either. Did his lack of passion contribute to his failure to suit up and take the field because of all the injuries? Nobody can say.
The Angels, my candidate for the unluckiest baseball team ever (but that’s another story) have not made the MLB playoffs since 2014 and have not won a playoff game since 2009. The 2025 season marked their 10th in a row with a sub-.500 record.
If Rendon collects his full salary for 2026, he will have made, not considering promotional fees which probably add a few million or so—you know, chump change–to the total, $253,828,571 in his major league career.
My position in such cases, which I have written about before, is that the fair, decent, ethical response for Rendon is to retire and thus forfeit the last year of his disastrous (for the Angels) contract. He’s made more than enough money for doing nearly nothing. For the fans, for his team mates, for the club, the least he can do is give up the opportunity to squeeze the last few pints of blood out of his victim.
Convince me I’m wrong.
Ethics Alarms 
Yes, the Angels are a sad sack franchise for sure. But Arizona and Phoenix billboard billionaire Arte Moreno’s done okay. He bought the team a little over twenty years ago for $180 Million from the Disney Corporation. It’s currently valued at $2.75 Billion.
Approximately $190,266,868
The Los Angeles Angels’ current payroll for the 2025 season totals approximately $190,266,868, ranking them 13th highest in baseball. The team has a luxury tax threshold of $241 million, allowing them a significant cushion for spending. The highest-paid player is Anthony Rendon, earning $38,000,000 per year. The Angels have made promises to increase payroll and return to contention, but their recent performance has raised concerns about their ability to meet these goals.
Crocodile tears.
As I am sure you remember, the team must win playoff games on their own. They’re only allowed help from above during the regular season….
The Los Angeles landscape is littered with fallen Angels. In addition to Rendon, we have the ghosts of Josh Hamilton, CJ Wilson, and Albert Pujols. Even Wunderkid Mike Trout has become something of a financial albatross…when was the last time he didn’t miss at least a month of the season?
I remember thinking at the time that Josh Hamilton was very likely not going to succeed with the Angels. The Rangers put a lot of time and effort into minding him and trying to make sure he didn’t relapse and stayed focused on baseball. I couldn’t see him having much of a support network in California.
But it is a unique talent the Angels have as a franchise. They take world class superstars, sign them to big contracts, and then meld them into …. a mediocre or worse baseball team. I don’t think any other franchise does this as well and as consistently as the Angels.
Previous generations of stars who met with misfortune with the Angels: Lymon Bostock, shot in his first year after signing as a free agent. Mo Vaughn, injured in his first game with the Angels. SS Rick Burleson, obtained in a trade, injured quickly and never again the player the Angels thought they were getting.The so-called Angels Curse goes all the way back to the team’s beginning in 1961. https://sabr.org/journal/article/of-witches-hexes-and-plain-bad-luck-the-reputed-curse-of-the-los-angeles-angels-of-anaheim/
If this is the case, is Rendon owed a lot of money for his first 6 years in the majors when he was not allowed to be a free agent and was paid a minimal contract even though he put up good production?
This is the problem with the argument. Baseball players are not free market. They are bound to a team for the first 5-6 years of their playing lives. Sometimes those are the best productive years of their career, yet they are not paid for that production.
Why should they have to surrender money at the end when they’re underperforming, if they are not paid at the beginning when they overperform their salaries? How is that ethical? This is the balance baseball has done with their contract system, I don’t blame the player at the end if the teams make out in the beginning. Those teams made those contracts, why should they not have to honor them?
Well, even in those first six years, Rendon earned about $13,000,000. That’s not exactly slave labor.
It wasn’t even close to what he should have got based on his production. I didn’t think we judged salaries based on what people doing “regular work” are doing. He was underpaid the first 6 years of his career, and now is supposed to give up his money because he is underperforming. I just don’t see why he should have to do that.
Right now free agents are being paid about $8million per point of WAR, which is a pretty good all-around figure for overall production. Rendon had 23 WAR in his first 6 years. In todays value that would be about $184 million. Even accounting for inflation, that $13 million he got was 1/10+ what he should have been paid.
If he was paid the value for his production then, than he should ethically give it up now when his production is down. But he wasn’t. This is what baseball, both the owners and players, have agreed to. But it seems like in this case you only want the players to give up their pay when they’re doing poorly, while the owners get “cheap” labor (in baseball terms) for the beginning of their careers when they play well.
A good argument for teams not making these sort of long term contracts.
The only way out, at this point, is for owners to individually resolve not to make uber long term contracts going forward. Of course, if enough of them do so the players’ union will sue……
Sadly, my Texas Rangers were one of the early leaders with their 10 year contract with Alex Rodriguez in the early 2000s. Who knows, they may still be paying the Yankees for that contract….
Fun back story on that A-Rod deal…maybe this is even true.
The Braves GM at the time (John Schuerholz) pursued Rodriguez hard in free agency (around 2000 I believe) and had apparently offered Alex a 10/$126 that he was prepared to sign. Then the Rangers GM (John Hart maybe?) approached A-Rod and said, “Whatever your largest contract offer is, we’ll double it.”
That would be fine if it started at year 1, not year 6. If a rookie goes out and has a good season, he should be able to go to whatever team will give him the best deal. A player starts with a fixed 6 year contract they have no control over.
The thing is, there will always be teams that will do longer term contracts, because that’s how they get the players. They know going in they are usually paying for the first half or 2/3 of the contract on older players. But if they don’t do that, most players just won’t sign with them. It’s already gone that way a bit, as only the top players generally get the super long term deals. Mediocre Joe will generally get the 3year type deals, if that.