Evaluating Anthony Rendon’s mega-contract after season-ending wrist injury

LA Angels' third baseman Anthony Rendon is now out for the season for the nagging wrist injury he's had in recent games. He already had to miss 20 games for it this season, and had most recently been day-to-day with the injury. Now, however, he will be out for the season again as he will be undergoing season-ending surgery.

Rendon has been a massive free agent bust through three years with the Halos. He is the third-highest paid position player in the game by average annual value. He was awarded a seven-year/$245 million after a three-year stretch in Washington where he hit .310/.397/.556 (.953 OPS) to go along with 318 RBIs and great defense.

In his first year with the Angels, he played great defense but regressed offensively. He hit just .286 and drove in just 31 runs. Of course, it was just a 60-game season, but those are still much worse numbers than what he put up in the three years prior. His .915 OPS, though, still proved that he was very productive on offense. While these numbers aren't worthy of $35 million per year, if he could just keep his production at that level, the contract wouldn't be a bad one. Sure, they still would be overpaying a bit, but it wouldn't be hurting the franchise.

Anthony Rendon has followed that up with missing 201 games for the LA Angels in his second and third year of the contract.

That's correct, as Anthony Rendon missed 104 games last year for the LA Angels to injury and now is about to miss 97 by the time the season's up this year. While his defense is still towards the top of baseball in terms of third base defense in this league, his offense and durability have been embarrassing.

In 2021 and 2022, he's slashed .235/.327/.383 (.710 OPS) with a 99 OPS+ and 201 games missed. He's driven in just 58 runs in the 103 games he played in for 2021 and 2022. Rendon famously said that he he has nothing to prove to Angel fans this past offseason. He excused his poor play for injuries.

Sure enough, however, that's who Rendon is. He's proven this year to be an injury-prone player who hasn't even lived up to his contract even when he's actually on the field. The Halos continue to make absolute blunders of free agent signings in their recent past.