LA Angels Thursday News Crash: HIP-PA

Sam Blum’s take on the end of Rendon…..

When told the news that Anthony Rendon would need hip surgery — sidelining him for all of 2025 — Ron Washington gave his beleaguered third baseman a phone call. It wasn’t returned.

“Anthony’s dealing with some things,” the manager said of the 34-year-old, who is still set to make more than $38 million from the Angels this year. “And I know at some point he’ll get back to me.”

It’s fitting for a player whom the Angels have desperately tried, year after year, to make a face of their franchise. A player they’ve done everything to motivate, compliment, and in some ways, enable. And, as with the skipper’s phone call, more often than not they’ve received nothing in return.

Rendon is under contract for this year, and the next, the final two seasons of his seven-year, $245-million contract. But in one breath from Angels GM Perry Minasian, it felt like there was finally a finality to this tragic saga. One that’s spanned multiple years, and generated many missed games, off-field controversies and the headaches that accompanied them.

“I don’t put timeframes on it, but it’s going to be a while until he’s back,” Minasian said. “He just had some difficulty with his rehab over the last couple weeks. We had a couple different doctors take a look at it.”

Rendon is not expected to play in 2025, with recovery expected to take longer than six months. When the season ends, he will have played in just 29.5 percent of the possible 880 games during his tenure.

He will have hit just 22 home runs in six seasons. He will have been suspended twice, including once for grabbing and attempting to hit an A’s fan.
He will have routinely angered fans with his public comments, lamenting the length of the season, eschewing the sport itself as not a top priority, and evading accountability with his “no habla ingles today” quips.

He will have battled with his team on a public level — claiming his bone bruise in 2023 was, in fact, a fracture, when Angels doctors all disagreed.

Overall, he will have generated chaos and frustration in nearly every possible form. And while this injury effectively brings that chapter to a close, it also ends any lingering chance he’d make his massive deal a worthwhile investment.

“It was a blow,” Washington said of Rendon’s injury. “Because I’m a believer in Rendon. It was a big blow. We’re going to continue to move forward, that’s all you can do.”

For years, the Angels have tried to cater to Rendon. After the aforementioned incident in Oakland, he was in the lineup the next day, batting cleanup. Then-manager Phil Nevin called him a leader.

Minasian said after the 2022 season that he expected Rendon to win Comeback Player of the Year award in 2023. Before the 2024 season, the team hired Bo Porter, his friend and confidant, to be the first base coach. Coaches flew to Houston to meet with him.
In the media, Angels coaches and front office have consistently praised his work with younger players and his quality at-bats, even as he put up below-replacement level offensive numbers nearly every season.

This offseason, however, that started to change. Minasian made it clear that Rendon would need to earn his playing time, and possibly even a roster spot.

“When Anthony has played, he hasn’t been productive,” Minasian said on Sept. 30, the day after the 2024 season ended. “He’s going to have to come in and earn it. There are no handouts. We’re starting to create some depth. … The best players are going to play.”
To that end, the Angels signed Yoán Moncada to be their third baseman just last week. It’s a move the club intended to make regardless of Rendon’s health. There was no intention of relying on Rendon to be the everyday starting third baseman.

Rendon still prepared heartily for the 2025 season, with those close to him saying he was in a good place the first couple months of the offseason. It’s unclear how he felt about the team’s plans to move him out of the lineup.

And he might not be keen to speak on the topic at any point. He’s not expected to be in camp, and time will tell if he’s around the Angels at all this year.

The only real drama that remains is how this will all end. Will he retire, as he’s openly pondered time and again?

“I’ve been contemplating it the last 10 years,” he said when asked in 2023, and repeated in 2024.

As of now, he has no plans to retire, and is intent on at least attempting to fulfill the final year of his seven-year contract.

So if he doesn’t retire, will the Angels release him, eating the many millions he’s still owed?

“Obviously he’s under contract for another two years,” Minasian said. “We expect him to rehab and get himself ready to play when he can.”

If neither happens, there remains only one possibility. He plays. And this whole saga begins anew, one final time. But while there’s no true finality yet, Wednesday’s news still felt like this relationship had reached a point of no return.

An end would allow Rendon to leave the Angels, and possibly the sport. And allow the Angels to move on from an era that has brought debilitating negativity.

It’s unlikely that any finality will occur this season. There’s no incentive on either side to end the partnership right now, as the injury effectively pushes that question down the road for a full year.

But more than that, it would bring an end to a pairing that was seemingly never meant to be. One that started with promise and a belief in their new franchise cornerstone. But has evolved into something unrecognizable from its initial intent. To the point now where there might be no use in going back.