We should all be so lucky to be paid $245 million to do something we don’t consider a top priority.
Anthony Rendon, the often-injured, no longer productive Angels third baseman, all but announced Monday that he’s kinda not a big fan of this whole baseball thing.
“It’s never been a top priority for me,” Rendon said, according to The Athletic. “This is a job. I do this to make a living. My faith, my family come before this job.
“So if those things come before it, I’m leaving.”
Once one of the premier players in the sport, Rendon has been an absolute shell of himself since heading to the Angels and apparently might just hate the sport that will pay him $38.6 million this year.
While dealing with injuries last year, Rendon said he’s been considering retiring for the last 10 years. That’s not a great look for a superstar player.
With spring training starting, reporters approached Rendon about his mindset regarding retiring.
The 33-year-old said his enthusiasm “has been the same” since being drafted in 2011, and he recently found an email he wrote to himself in 2014 — his first full season with the Nationals — in which he listed the pros and cons to why he remained in baseball.
Time has altered that list.
“It’s a lot different. I’m married. I have four kids,” Rendon said. “My priorities have changed since I was in my early 20s. So, definitely my perspective on baseball has been more skewed.”
When a reporter asked if baseball remained a top priority, Rendon quipped about it never being one.
He then uttered a line that many have surely said who are not so fortunate to be paid more than $100 million over the past three years to hit a grand total of 13 homers.
“Oh, it’s a priority for sure. Because it’s my job,” Rendon said. “I’m here, aren’t I.”
The interview neared its end as a reporter asked Rendon, “Do you want to be here?” to which he replied that he would prefer not to be talking to the media at an early hour.
After a follow-up question about whether he wanted to be playing baseball for the Angels, Rendon shut down the topic.
“I have answered your question,” Rendon said. “So why do (you) keep picking at it?”
The Angels would surely love it if Rendon confirmed he no longer loved baseball and retired since they are on the hook for his salary through the 2026 season.
Rendon arguably has the worst contract among position players in the sport — it’s a battle with Yankees slimmed-down slugger Giancarlo Stanton — and his seven-year, $245 million deal would possibly be the worst in MLB if not for Stephen Strasburg’s extension with the Nationals.
The comments were not the first sign of Rendon’s discontent with the sport.
“We got to shorten the season, man. There’s too many dang games — 162 games and 185 days or whatever it is. Man, no. We got to shorten this bad boy up,” Rendon told the “Jack Vita Show” in January.
This led to many noting that Rendon has not sniffed 162 games with the Angels.
In fact, the Angels have received a total of 200 games — no more than 58 in any season — from Rendon in four seasons with a slash line of .249/.359/.399/.758 to go along with 22 homers and 111 RBIs.
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