Angels bailing on Miguel Sano after 7 games back from injury is absolutely cutthroat

LA's roster move to bring back Anthony Rendon ended one of their feel-good stories from this spring.

Eric Cole

Los Angeles Angels v Chicago Cubs / Nuccio DiNuzzo/GettyImages

Well, Los Angeles Angels fans were warned, but the team did indeed bring Anthony Rendon back without sending him on a rehab assignment. In his first game back after a lengthy absence due to a pretty severe hamstring injury, Rendon managed to go 1-for-4 with a garbage time RBI, which is honestly better than expected.

With Rendon's return, though, that meant that there was going to be a roster casualty, and unfortunately it was Miguel Sano, who ended up getting designated for assignment. Given everything he went through just to get back to the majors and the injury he had just returned from, that is a pretty brutal turn of events.

Miguel Sano's career just suffered another setback after Angels DFA

It sure seemed like Sano was going to be one of MLB's feel-good stories in 2024. He sat out for all of 2023 as he failed to sign with any team, but came to Angels' camp this year in great shape and played well enough to win an Opening Day roster spot on LA's bench. Unfortunately, Sano didn't do much with the playing time he got with a .205/.295/.313 line and just two homers. Sano then ended up on the injured list with a knee injury at the beginning of May.

By the time Sano was activated from the IL, Rendon was already close to returning, and the writing was on the wall that Sano could be the odd man out. While expectations for Rendon are understandably low, Sano just hasn't played well enough to make that roster decision more difficult for the Angels, with Rendon needing to rotate between third base and DH for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully Sano gets another chance elsewhere this year. It is hard to overstate how difficult it is to make it back to the big leagues after being out for a year, and with Sano's significant raw power, he could still find a home on a bench somewhere.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.