Halfway Through His $245 Million Contract, The Angels Are Paying Anthony Rendon $4 Million Per Home Run
Now in his fourth year of a seven-year, $245 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels, it's looking like Anthony Rendon might cement himself as one of the greatest bag getters in baseball history. This man — along with the help of Scott Boras — may have pulled off an all-time fleecing.
Coming off the best season of his career by far in 2019, the Angels inked Rendon to be their third baseman of the future and certainly paid him like someone you'd expect to be a 30 home run and/or 100 RBI guy in most of those seasons. Now halfway through the fourth season of that contract, Rendon has played just 200 games and is averaging seven homers and 30 RBI per year. For every Rendon home run so far, Los Angeles is paying nearly double what the Braves are paying NL All-Star starting shortstop Orlando Arcia for each of the next three years. You may be shocked to learn the GM who gave Rendon this deal was Billy Eppler, the architect behind the 2023 New York Mets.
People thought the contract the Angels gave Albert Pujols was bad and then right as that one was winding down, they gave an infinitely worse player more money. Whatever mega contract they're planning on handing out in a year or two is going to be unfathomably awful.
Congrats to Rendon and Boras for pulling this off. If you're a baseball agent and one of your clients has the best year of his career going into free agency, call the Los Angeles Angels immediately.