The Los Angeles Angels are in the process of buying out the contract of third-baseman Anthony Rendon – with fans rejoicing the end of the ‘worst contract in baseball history’.
Rendon is in the final year of a seven-year, $245million deal and is owed $38m in 2026. Now, according to ESPN, the team will be releasing Rendon from his deal as the player is expected to retire.
Rendon spent the entire 2025 season recovering from hip surgery and did not play a single game.
It’s not clear what the structure of his buyout will be – with an increasing likelihood that he will accept deferred money.
Rendon signed with the Angels in 2019 after the best season of his career – where he had career-bests in home runs (34), RBI (126), batting average (.319), slugging percentage (.598) and OPS (1.010) in a World Series-winning campaign with the Washington Nationals.
Los Angeles then made him the highest-paid third-baseman in the game with that $245m deal. Immediately it did not pay off for the team.
The Los Angeles Angels are set to buyout the contract of third-baseman Anthony Rendon
Rendon’s $245million deal was viewed by fans as one of the worst deals in baseball history
Across the seven years of his deal, Rendon only played in about a quarter of all possible games for the Angels.
While Rendon put up a solid season in the Covid-shortened 2020 campaign, the following four years were sub-par at best.
He only appeared in 205 of a possible 648 games from 2021 to 2024 – slashing only .231/.329/.336 as he sustained injuries to his groin, knee, hamstring, shin, oblique, back, wrists and hips.
In February, the team announced Rendon would miss the entire 2025 season as he spent most of the time rehabbing at his home in Houston.
He hasn’t hit a home run for the Angels since July 1, 2023 and never played in more than 58 games in a single season for the Angels.
Rendon also publicly stated that he only had a limited interest in baseball – admitting it wasn’t his foremost priority, that he didn’t care about accolades or attention, and revealing he viewed it as merely a job.
Rendon singed a seven-year deal with the Angels in 2019 and played in only a quarter of the games he could have been available for due to a myriad of injuries all over his body
 He also publicly declared baseball was ‘merely a job’ to him and that it wasn’t a priority
Now, fans were celebrating the departure of the player and remembering how poorly his contract aged.
‘Worst contract in the history of the mlb. Guy didn’t even want to play baseball,’ said one user on X.
Another joked, ‘An all time heist. Congrats to Rendon.’
‘Will go down as possibly the worst contract of all time,’ said another.
One comment read, ‘This dude turned into one of the most unlikable guys super fast. What a speedrun.’
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MLB team agrees to end ‘worst contract in baseball history’ with $245m flop set to retire