The Angels are discussing a buyout with Anthony Rendon. He is expected to retire..
The Angels signed recently non-tendered Gustavo Campero to a minor league deal. I guess it wasn’t personal.
The Orioles signed right-hander Ryan Helsley to a two year deal. Can he start?
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
I’ve said what I wanted to say about Rendon already. I’m just glad he’ll be gone.
I’ll always respect Rendon for sticking a paw in Wanker’s face when Wanker wanked his way over to the Angels’ dugout
Who is Wanker? Sounds like a bad guy.
Works at the Shady Lady
I never advocated to sign Rendon, but once the Angels did, I was big on him being an important part of the team. I went out and bought my 1st on ten Rendon Jerseys. (Not much to do but online shop during covid.) Every year I believed he would come back and make an impact. Even this year I was hoping he would pull out a useful season. I’m not calling him a piece of shit, but he has been a turd on the field. Man is being paid, the optics are horrible and it doesn’t seem he does anything else but collect a check. Showing up and mentoring the young guys, giving back to the community, charities or something would help. I get he signed a guaranteed contract but it was to play ball. (Lyman Bostock comes to mind.) Maybe start a foundation, a soup kitchen or food drive that he’d match the donations. Stand at the Gates of Angel Stadium and Give out Candy during Halloween week, play Santa and hand out gifts. Shit give a homeless man a jacket. Donate your used medical equipment. Do some of those CHOC’s visits. Set up a dunk me or throw a pie in my face booth behind the Rock formation and donate all proceeds. Sign up to be a Helpful Honda guy. Play drums in a new cars for kids commercial. Give out scholarships. Sponsor local little leagues, rebuild little league ballparks. Buy 10 Jerseys off some guy!
If you can’t get on the field, do something off it.
Sincerely
Guy with 10 Jerseys up for sale.
Change PM to GM
I can’t stand Perry 🤬🤬
Increasingly the Angels seem to match up rather well with the Mets this off-season. They have 3x as many infielders as they know what to do with and are listening on offers for McNeil and Senga, both usable pieces here.
If I had a second IIWPM of the teardown variety, I might start with NYM. They have needs at OF/DH and 1B, might be a match on a swap of underwater contracts (Soler), and have a number of prospects in the upper minors who are good fits here.
Jacob Reimer and Carson Benge could be nice returns, they have 5-6 interesting rookie or near-MLB-ready pitchers, perhaps even a 3TO type like Ryan Clifford might intrigue.
What do you think of Mark Vientos? He fell from grace in 2025 after a really good 2024 season. I am unsure what the Mets’ plans for for him. Brett Baty is another player who went the other way, he struggled as a prospect until last year when he played better.
Not a fan really. DH only – his defense is awful, not really serviceable at 3B. His chase and whiff rates are far too high for a bat-only slugger – it’s a lot of Ks to go with precious few walks, and not really a fit on a team with a perma-DH in Trout.
I like Reimer far more – more contact oriented, more balanced batting profile, solid average defender at third. I’ll trade off a few HRs for more walks and doubles and the positional flexibility Reimer offers.
Yup. I dig Reimer
Not that the Mets would leap at these offers, though who knows. Just as fodder for discussion. The Senga/McNeil trade only adds $9M to Angels payroll this season, and could bring back six years of an MLB regular in Reimer if he pans out.
We’d match up better if Arte had his own casino next to the Big A. From Bloomberg:
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen won approval to operate a casino next to Citi Field in Queens, one of three projects the state gaming commission’s facility location board selected for gambling licenses in New York City. Cohen, the hedge fund mogul who submitted an $8 billion casino proposal with partner Hard Rock International, was picked alongside Genting Group’s Resorts World and Bally’s.
Well, casino or no, they have an infield logjam to clear.
They have Lindor, Semien and Baty in everyday positions, and have nowhere really to put McNeil, Acuna, Mauricio, and Vientos (though the latter might be the default at 1B if they don’t re-sign Alonso). And it’s pretty clear that they want to upgrade their outfield.
i could see Adell maybe there in Queens. Alonso was my #1 FA last year and would love to have him this year (how many HR after Ward can we afford to lose?)
Mets will find and can afford much better options than Soler.
Alonso seems like the kind of player the halos would splurge on, who would then have a down first season followed by atrocious seasons due to either injury or just a decline in skills, as we patiently wait for the contract to expire so we can allocate the funds to another player whose best years are behind them.
It’s a shock Arte hasn’t signed him yet.
Just pay him his ’26 salary and be done with it. The last thing I want is the team to elongate his salary, paying him more than the $38m owed, just so they can have a few million freed up to spend next season. We’re one season away from being done with it/him, why prolong?
Dumping Rendon early won’t effect his AAV hit on the payroll but it could help mitigate the Skaggs payout. I don’t think this leads to a bigger FA contract signing but it could allow Perry just to match the regular payroll as last year.
Exactly. I’m not sure where the “Hell yeah! This changes things!” ideas are coming from. Other than some slack dicked schadenfreude I’m not sure what Rendon limping off into the sunset does for us in real terms.
The Athletic just updated their 10 worst contracts in MLB.
Trout is 3rd
Rendon is 2nd
Kris Bryant is 1st
I still say you make the Trout deal 10 times out of 10. It just didn’t work out this time.
But the fact of the matter is the Angels have had at least 1 and often 2 of the worst contracts in the entire sport for nearly 2 decades and it is impossible to win that way without an amazing farm and/or a massive payroll.
Gary Matthews Jr., Vernon Wells, Pujols, Hamilton, Justin Upton, Anthony Rendon to go along with a host of shorter deals for Matt Harvey types have just killed this team.
Honestly, there isn’t much to criticize the Rendon deal from a foresight perspective either. He was coming off a career year and a great playoff performance, he had 3 consecutive years of being a top 5 first baseman, was still under 30 at the time of the signing (turned 30 the first season), and the chief criticism of him was that he was too calm and level-headed.
The angry, undisciplined, injury-prone player the Angels got is not somebody any reasonable person would have expected to see.
I wonder if COVID changed him and caused his decline. He still had good numbers in 2020 considering the shortened 2020 season, but he could have very easily fell out of his normal workout routine, resulting in the loss of skill and health in 2021 and beyond.
On the other hand, he might have just lost his motivation since he already had a WS ring and paycheck.
My best guess is the incentive to get the best contract killed him. It appeared he really didn’t care as much and at that level, there is no room for not caring. My guess is that Angel’s ownership doesn’t care as much about character or career trajectory as it does star status.
There actually was some information available at the time that he liked the money/opportunity but not the grind and demands. I could be wrong but, signing guys coming off a career year typically hasn’t worked out.
It’s true. He wasn’t a stupid signing at all when we did it.
I’ve avoided saying it for years, but now that he’s just about cooked, I’ll just do it. I vaguely know two guys who played with Rendon at different points. They still know him to some extent. I’ve only asked a couple times, but, as was the case before he got here, he was pretty much universally well regarded as a player and a guy. Still is. He’s still a good guy as far as I can tell. We saw him lose his cool ONE time. One of those two guys told me he’s pretty miserable about all of this, he’s been in a considerable amount of pain for years now, and he’s been under a lot of self imposed pressure to try and make good. He’s just not that big a dick. He’s a solid dude in an incredibly shitty situation that has been non-stop suck for years.
I had asked one guy specifically about the “there’s more to life than baseball” comments and he had a good guess/take on it. I guess that hip issue he had was pretty serious and it was a pretty clear threat that he may not play again, or be able to play well. He may not even be OK in normal day to day life. The way my acquaintance saw it, Rendon was/is pretty despondent and was basically trying to cope, saying “well, there are more important things, like my family” because it was looking increasingly likely that baseball, at least as he knew it, may be over for him.
I have no idea if that’s true or just dollar store mind reading. What I do know is that he’s had surgery five years in a row. While everyone shits on him. If any of us had to do that most of the pussies on this site would be posting about it to get their “thoughts and prayers” replies etc while being cranky as fck and crying the whole way through about how unfair the world is.
Most of us have never even been close to a situation where we have just won a world series and now we are gonna go out to California to play with Ohtani and Trout and then Covid hits… then the first injury happens… and the second… and so on. It’s gotta be pretty hard to go from a guy who, if he averages five WAR a season is at least in that Buddy Bell/Scott Rolen range of all time 3B with, he hopes, another ring, to a cripple who everyone hates. And still keep getting surgery and rehabbing etc. Sure, millions of dollars helps, but I doubt it’s been fun and it’s got to be pretty disappointing.
Rendon’s big sins have been being good enough, and a solid enough club house leader on a championship team, to get paid a big contract. Not being Garrit Cole. Getting signed by Arte to play for a fanbase full of petulant manbabies. Then having a solid but short 2020 season before his body fell apart and he got to spend five years (and probably more to come) in physical therapy. Oh, and not doing the dance and singing the song we want to hear from him while he goes through it all.
Sure, Rendon’s seemed a bit testy a couple times and hasn’t cried in public enough for me… or made what ever statements he’s supposed to make to look the way I want him to. But I personally don’t think I would have done a better job, just as a man, than Rendon has. I have serious doubts about most of the guys on this site too.
That’s a good take. Rendon came from being a fan favorite with a WS ring. His intro in Anaheim was struggling for a few weeks before bouncing back in a COVID-shortened season that most fans weren’t paying attention to, followed by constant injuries.
Anyone in that situation is going to be unhappy. Maybe he could have done a better PR job, but there are lots of people who would have done even worse.
Super interesting and great insight. As a fan it’s tough not to be super frustrated with such a contract and a player who doesn’t live up to it. Fans tend to be idiots in so many ways. This site is full of fanatics and therefore irrational emotional people.
The truth rarely exists in the extremes. It usually lies within the goalposts. What you shared makes more sense than the petulant player narrative that has run rampant.
I do think that if Rendon had made some effort to control PR a bit more- it could have worked in his favor. Maybe donating a portion of his salary to local charities etc. Obviously he is under no obligation to do so but it might have helped with the fans.
Yeah, I wonder about the PR some but I also just think most of us are down on his PR because we’ve always been down on him since he wasn’t Garritt Cole. I just think, is he REALLY all that different from Mike Trout? His injuries have been worse. Trout literally spoke directly to the media what? Twice during all those injury stints? And with Trout we had the endless “he’s almost back” bullshit. And then “will he be sad if they move him off center” bullshit. And honestly, Mike “The Greatest” Trout had weeks and weeks of warning that he was moving to RF last year and when he finally got into games it was clear he hadn’t stood in that spot at all, maybe ever. He was awful.
But Trout handled things “so much better” in so many of our eyes. Why, cause he’s our boy and Rendon was a guy who can’t pitch that Arte signed. Who has a ring.
So there’s “the fan side of it”. I don’t think Rendon particularly likes the fans, and it’s because the fans are a bunch of assholes. Then there’s the fact that, if he really is upset about how things are going is it realistic to expect him to want to go out of his way to talk to Sam The Hat about it?
Again, I think I’d fail worse than Rendon. I have had a big bummer in my life when I was just a semi-public figure in the town I was in. It gets brought up A LOT. Even by well meaning people. And shit holes. And really, the last thing I wanted to do was things like a radio show or zine interview or podcast, I just wanted to hide under a rock, do my job, drink and fall asleep. And, back then, if you pushed my buttons wrong you wound up asleep on a sidewalk. I don’t think Rendon not being gung ho about getting out there with the press and the fans while he struggles with all this stuff is really all that hard to understand.
If Angels fans had ever shown him anything but a shitty stick the whole time he was here things may have been different. But they are what they are and I don’t think Rendon’s some kind of PR moron or a true jerk because of it. He seems like a normal human being who doesn’t have political ambitions.
It kind of begs the question- if you sign a giant contract does that come with certain obligations to be available to the fans and press even in adverse times and conditions. While there is clearly no contractual obligation to do so, I do think big money does come with certain inherent responsibilities. You don’t lose the money if you do not fulfill them – but you lose the fan base whatever that means.
One thing you say that I pick a small nit with – I think the fans totally welcomed Rendon and were super psyched and supportive of him until maybe around ‘22 or ‘23. Until then he was a fan favorite with his huge likeness on the stadium, people buying his jersey and hope for a comeback each season. So I don’t think the fanbase was anti-Rendon or gave him the shitty-stick until relatively recently.
I do think he could have handled things better as a semi public figure if he had an interest in that. The same hater lemmings quickly become forgiving lemmings. But you are right- it would have to come from an honest place.
Trout is given a huge break because he provided so many seasons of greatness as an Angel (unlike Rendon). But you are right – since 2020 Trout has basically been Rendon both on and off the field but continues to receive adulation from a fan base living in the past.
Thanks again for the insight.
I will disagree on one point. Even while injured and playing poorly, Trout has still fulfilled some obligations related to the Angels community service stuff like spending time with kids at CHOC, Rendon has done none of that.
Sure, there were certainly fans that were happy with him at first. I think what really killed that was basically covid, then he was just kind of gone. Then he was a piece of shit.
The sheer crazy level of injuries he had…. it was like he had a solid 50 games, then POOF he was gone and he just kind of became a very expensive ghost story…. “Some day, you gonna see da Rendon….” And when that happens asshole fans gonna asshole, and honestly I wouldn’t give that shit the time of day so why should he?
And yes, I also don’t think Rendon’s done a particularly good job with the baby kissing and showing up at sporting goods stores or what ever that he could have applied himself to so he seemed more like “our guy”.
As for talking to the press and fans, after about August 2021 they had nothing nice to say to him, and he had no positive news to share usually, so what exactly does his contract obligate him too do? Take one in the balls to impress fanboy? Risk losing his temper and causing drama?
I’m just saying I can see why he may not have done it, and it actually makes sense and is what a lot of normal folks would have done. He’s not some special headcase asshole…. but he’s also not lighting the world on fire with Ernie Banks level charisma either.
Cool insight.
From what I’ve read the hip injury in 2021 was a career ender for most guys. At 31 years old and with lots of contract ahead of him he got the surgery and rehabbed and tried to come back.
The 2022 wrist injury was just shitty.
But the 2023 wrist injury was due to getting hit by an errant pitch and the foul ball off the shin was simply brutal to watch. I’ve gone shin to shin a few times in my life in martial arts and I promise you I’d rather just take a solid punch pretty much anywhere else. I can’t imagine an impact that leads to a deep bone bruise/fracture. Can’t hate on a guy for either of those.
Hips are fickle beasts. The repeat hip surgery in 2025 had to be a kick in the nads. Dude was close to hopefully redeeming himself for 2 season and then his career was ended.
I do think Rendon did himself a disservice with many of his comments in the media and being adversarial to them during his rehab stints. A few “nobody is more frustrated than me” platitudes and some public appearances likely go a long way, but he’s more of a quiet guy.
Yes, he did not do himself any justice.
Bo knows hips.
It’s sort of my nature, but honestly I prefer a guy who doesn’t bullshit me with a bunch of “I’m working 28 hours a day nine days a week because I love the fans sooooo much and baseball means more to me than God” crap. Especially when he has no idea if he’ll be back any time soon at all. Demanding a guy be a total fake and seem energized while he does it to sooth my HEMI mindset just seems lame to me.
Rendon’s contract IS THE WORST, or close to it. But I think Rendon’s actually a pretty real dude.
I don’t think the comment of “nobody is more frustrated than me” is problematic at all. I think he was being honest.
I think he became persona non-grata with the fans because he didn’t spew the typical and insincere platitudes that athletes & coaches robotically recite.
And a lot of thse petulant manbabies conveinently forget the “zOMG HE STUFFED DODGERZ FOR DEH MONKEY!!!!!” dick swinging they were doing when he signed.
I didn’t take you for a Rendon apologist. I could not disagree more.
My view is he clearly faked/milked injuries to stay at home in Houston. The apparent worst of all shin bruises was just the start. That’s when the Angels first were questioning his integrity and I can’t disagree.
Move forward to the delaying hip surgery so he could miss the entire season. Then 2025 comes around and we all knew that he was playing that game again. Has anyone even confirmed that he had surgery again? I’m so done with him.
I listened to him on a podcast a couple years ago talk about how hard it was just to get his workout in with all the stuff he was doing everyday with his kids.
I’m a pretty weak apologist. I mean, there’s no way to argue that that contract isn’t a man made disaster.
I’m pretty sure if he’s on the IL getting paid he’s required to satisfy the team that he’s getting surgery/rehab etc. But hey, if that tinfoil hat shit gets you hard and you need to be mad at Rendon to get the blood flowing more power to you.
If he really pulled all that off I like him even more. That’s some evil genius level shit. No wonder so many throbbers on this site have been gagging with envy over the guy for so long. He made a ton of money in his bathrobe while a bunch of grown ass men cried about him. All while looking like a sexy pirate. I want that job.
LOL. You do pretty well, I would not want to be in a courtroom with you on the other side. I’m interested to see if some reporting ever uncovers the full story. Then I can replace my tin foil hat with a halo one.
Neither was Hamilton before he signed. He was filling a very needed OF spot and coming off an mvp year.
Hamilton won the MVP in 2010. He was still good in in 2011 and the early half of 2012, but look at the 2012 splits:
2012 1st half – .308/.380/.635, 22.2 K%
2012 2nd half – .259/.323/.510, 29.3 K%
His career K% from 2007-2011 was only 18.2%! In 2012, the league discovered that Hamilton would free swing at low and away sliders, particularly on 2 strikes. By the end of the season, it was well known, which is why his K% skyrocketed and his average plummeted.
I recall reading a fangraphs article about it a few weeks before the Angels signed Hamilton. It was a huge red flag the Angels simply ignored.
Not unlike many others. You want to feel bad for them but they just don’t do their homework.
Yeah. The Hamilton contract scared me when we signed it. I thought we could have gotten a fairly good OF for far less…. but SPLASH!
5 years was fine with me. He did put up more war in his 2 years than pujols did his last 5 years as an angel.
Pujols having a productive little stint with the Dodgers makes me wonder what Trout’s career would have looked like somewhere else. Other teams have bad contracts of course but it is weird we don’t ever seem to have *any* work out anymore.
Seriously. I say we just try NOT signing any big contracts for a while.
Pujols was more productive in his final stint with the Cards. He has a .895 OPS in his final season with the Cards in 2022, though you are correct that he hit better with the Dodgers after the Angels released him,
The Upton extension is the one I never understood. He played half a season at the Big A and opted-out. He was already making enough money. I said at the time they should have told him they like him at his current price and look for him to have a useful career here. At the higher opt-out price, it wasn’t worth it. But they bowed down to him anyway and re-signed him which became an awful deal. I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get the trade for Wells either.
I disliked the Hamilton contract.
Trout was a home-grown guy that was the face of the franchise. It’s hard not to pay him. Boston didn’t with Mookie though. That didn’t really help the Red Sox, however.
I had no opinion on Rendon when signed other than surprise. I thought the length of the deal was long given his injury history. But I expected his style of player might be ok for at least most of the deal. Incorrect.
Pujols only made sense from a marketing standpoint. He was on the wrong side of 30 and had consecutive years of declining at the plate. It was foreseeable he would continue to decline, although maybe not quite as fast and far as he did.
Hamilton’s deal was idiotic. The league found an exploit in his swing the second half of the prior season (he constantly whiffs at sliders low and away). At most he should have had a 1-year bridge contract to see if he could fix the issue, which he never did.
I agree Wells was bad too. I didn’t expect Wells to be so bad, but he was already overpaid for his return in Toronto, and the Angels gave up an above-average bat for a bad contract. I get the Angels were dealing Napoli because he didn’t get along with Scioscia, but that’s the type of trade that should have had a prospect coming from Toronto.
All you had to do was look at Wells’ road numbers.
I totally agree on Hamilton. I watched those games where he swung no matter what on pitches he couldn’t hit. I didn’t understand it when he was signed here to such a big money deal — and with his history also.
I really liked Upton and had for quite a while, but that deal was an overpay. Upton opted to become a free agent and the Angels signed him to that extension about 15 minutes later.
Hamilton was a horrible signing. Wells trade was a disaster. Matthews as well.
I liked Rendon when he was signed although we really needed pitching.
What injury history? He had a pretty normal track record injury wise before arriving in the land of sad donkeys.
If you ever owned Rendon in your fantasy team, he seemed to always be nursing something during the years before Anaheim. It only got much worse here.
The only season he played less than 136 games with less than 4.3 WAR was 2015 when he had his one extended injury. He was on pace for 6 WAR with us in 2020 too. There weren’t any special “oh my gah he injured prone” warnings with him till he’d settled in at the burial ground.
That Kris Bryant contract was a shocker. Compounded by a poor run team as the Rockies. His health, power and hitting skills were declining in 2020. A mid-season trade to the Giants in 2021 and their lack of interest in retaining his services after the season, spoke volumes. Then here comes Colorado…took a page out of AM/PMs playbook. Scott Boras did a number on Bill Schmidt (GM) who incidentally took over for much maligned Jeff Bridich who stepped down in April of that season. Schmitty wanted to make a big splash and it backfired. He walked the plank 2-months ago, owner fired him.
It was really weird, a guy who always was “a bat in a position” who then began to not hit goes toooo…. an NL team where he can’t DH. It was a really weird signing. At least we needed a 3B and signed a 3B.
was this current deals?
was Strasburg’s on the list? His contract is by far the worst contract in history
Yeah, only 8 starts after signing that big contract. Should be on a top ten list.
“The worst contracts for decades” begs a chicken or the egg question:
Were the contracts/players duds from the get go, or does the Angels organization have a special way of turning wine into water?
With Bautista injured Helsley is there to close.
We are in December now with only Cease and a couple closers off the board. Be interesting to see if the market heats up before the holidays.
The Angels are negotiating directly with Boras, not Rendon.
As such, the odds of a very good deal for Rendon are quite favorable.
As long as this ends his tenure suckling on the annual budgetary teet of Arte Moreno, it’s all good.
Rendon will get all of his money. It is fully guaranteed.
The number of years and interest in deferred pay are being determined.
Between last year and 26 Rendon will collect $76 million without ever stepping foot on a field.
The new Bobby Bonilla day is coming….
I think Bonilla’s ends the year Ohtani’s start.
Funny how the $million a year just doesn’t sound like much now.
Why is that? MLB contracts are fully guaranteed if you can’t play or are released, but if a player doesn’t want to play and retires, they don’t get the money for the remaining post-retirement years.
If Rendon can retire and forego the entire salary for 2026, why couldn’t Rendon agree to retire early in exchange for a reduced salary?
It is in Boras’ interest as well for the Angels to have more spending power in the short term though.
Low or no interest deferral is basically just putting Rendon’s last season on a credit card so they can buy more Christmas presents now —- or pay the Skaggs family.
Boras isn’t legally allowed to consider his own interest in helping the Angels have more money to sign other players. He has to put Rendon’s interest above his own.
Wink, Wink.
