Bad contracts are mostly a simple fact of life in baseball. Sometimes deals go sideways for any number of reason, and there isn’t a team in the game that doesn’t have to eat money for an underperforming player.
But some deals are epically bad. The bloated contract of Los Angeles third baseman Anthony Rendon is one of them, and as the team prepares to pay off the final year of Rendon’s deal to make him go away, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic served up an intriguing list ranking the ten worst contracts in MLB.
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Rendon isn’t the only Angels player to turn up on the list. He ranked second behind DH Kris Bryant of the Colorado Rockies, and Angels outfielder Mike Trout checked in at #3.
Stavenhagen raised some salient points about both Angels players in his comments. With regard to Rendon, only four players will make more non-deferred money in 2026, with the names including Mets outfielder Juan Soto, pitcher Zack Wheeler, and outfielders Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Aaron Judge. The difference between Rendon and these other players, of course, is that Rendon won’t play a single game this year.
Rendon’s final numbers are appropriately horrifying. He’s played just 257 games for the Angels since the 2020 season with just 22 runs and an accumulated 3.7 fWAR, and his deal was for seven years for $245 million.
The Angels still have to negotiate the buyout with Rendon’s agent, Scott Boras, and the hope is that Boras won’t be as prickly as usual in these negotiations. The buyout might actually free up some money for the Angels to use on a player who actually plays, especially now that LA has holes at third base, second base and left field.
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The Trout contract hasn’t been as bad, and it’s easier to defend him since he actually wants to play and believes he has a lot left in the tank. That’s an open question at this point given his ongoing knee issues, but he did hit 25 home runs to go with a .353 OBP. He also played in 130 games, which was the most since 2019.
He’s making $37 million, though, and Stavenhagen pointed out some unavoidable facts. There are only six players in MLB who are making more than Trout, plus his days in center field are over. He still has five years left on his deal, so writers like Stavenhagen will probably be including him on their lists whenever the next update rolls around.