Angels Explore Buyout as Anthony Rendon Expected to Retire

The Anthony Rendon era in Anaheim looks like it’s sputtering out. After six injury-filled seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, the club is reportedly working on a buyout of the final year of his massive seven-year, $245 million contract.

This move would likely close the book on both his time with the Angels and, honestly, maybe his entire Major League Baseball career.

Angels Negotiating a Buyout of Rendon’s Contract

Reports say the Angels are in talks to buy out the last year of Anthony Rendon’s deal, which covers the 2026 season. Rendon is owed $38 million for that final year, a figure that’s hung over the franchise given his lack of on-field impact lately.

At 35 years old and coming off yet another lost year, a buyout would give the Angels some payroll breathing room and finally end a contract that never lived up to its hype. For Rendon, it could be the last page of a career that, at one point, had him among baseball’s best third basemen.

A Costly Deal That Never Paid Off

When the Angels signed Rendon to that seven-year, $245 million deal, they were chasing the guy who’d just carried the Washington Nationals to a championship. Instead, they spent most of the past six years getting rehab updates instead of highlight reels.

The $38 million due in 2026 stands as a reminder of that disconnect—a superstar salary for a player who just couldn’t stay on the field.

From World Series Star to Injury Casualty

To really get the frustration here, you have to rewind to 2019, when Rendon was one of the scariest hitters around. That year with the Nationals, he finished third in NL MVP voting and played a huge role in delivering the franchise’s first World Series title.

Born in Houston, Rendon hit free agency as an elite run producer and a defensive asset at third. The Angels, desperate for a big bat to help their franchise cornerstone, saw Rendon as the perfect fit and jumped at the chance to sign him.

The Anaheim Expectations vs. Reality

People expected Rendon to anchor the lineup and push the Angels back into the playoff picture. Instead, his time in Anaheim ended up being about the games he missed, not the ones he played.

That gap between his Nationals peak and his Angels reality pretty much sums up why a buyout is on the table now.

Six Seasons Derailed by Injuries

Rendon’s time with the Angels? In a word: incomplete. From 2020 through 2024, he missed over 100 games every season, which is just wild for someone on a contract of that size.

Things hit a wall when Rendon missed the entire 2025 season with a hip injury. It left fans and the team feeling like his body just couldn’t handle the grind anymore.

This once-marquee signing turned into one of the more frustrating storylines in recent Angels memory.

Rendon’s Numbers with the Angels

When Rendon actually played, his production was okay, but nowhere near his Washington heights. Over 257 games with the Angels, here’s what he put up:

Those numbers, stretched over six years, show a player who was more of a role guy than a lineup anchor. For a seven-year, $245 million deal, the gap between what the Angels paid for and what they got became impossible to ignore.

What the Future Holds for Rendon and the Angels

If the buyout goes through, the Angels can finally move on from a saga that’s hung over their roster and payroll for too long. They’ll have a chance to redirect resources and maybe start building a new core.

For Rendon, who knows? Maybe there’s another act. With his injury history, a missed 2025 season, and age creeping up, it’d take a clean bill of health and a team willing to roll the dice on his pedigree. That feels like a long shot, but baseball’s weird—stranger things have happened.

A Legacy of “What If?”

Rendon will always have that magical 2019 run with the Nationals. That postseason showed just how much he could rise to the moment on baseball’s biggest stage.

But his time with the Angels? It’s hard not to see it as a classic case of what might have been. Injuries and bad timing just wrecked the superstar signing.

As the Angels and Rendon inch toward a contractual split, the story lingers. In modern baseball, even the most carefully planned long-term deals can unravel fast when durability takes center stage.

 
Here is the source article for this story: Report: Angels explore buyout with Rendon expected to retire