The Los Angeles Angels and Rendon have agreed to a contract buyout for the final year of his deal, restructuring his salary in order to defer it over the next three-to-five years, The Athletic’s Sam Blum reported Tuesday.
Rendon was in line to earn $38.6 million in 2026 in the final year of a seven-year, $245-million contract signed in 2019.
The infielder has struggled mightily since joining the Angels, batting .242 with a .717 OPS and only 22 home runs.
He has dealt with injuries, limiting him to fewer than 60 games in every season in L.A. Rendon played in only 257 out of a possible 1,032 games and the Angels failed to make the playoffs each year.
The Houston native sat out the entirety of the 2025 season after undergoing hip surgery in spring training.
At the time of the blockbuster deal, Rendon was coming off the best season of his career, batting .319 with a 1.010 OPS, 34 home runs and 126 RBIs. He finished third in NL MVP voting and helped the Washington Nationals to their first World Series.
Though ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez reported in November that the two sides were working toward a buyout, with the expectation Rendon would retire, it remains unclear if that’s what he now intends to do. Instead, according to Gonzalez, Rendon will continue to rehab his hip injury from his home in Houston.
Since being drafted sixth overall by the Nationals in 2011, the two-time Silver Slugger has a career .280 batting average with a .829 OPs and 158 home runs.