Despite being one of the highest-paid baseball players in the world, Anthony Rendon has been a rare sight for fans over the past several years. Despite drawing a massive salary amid chronic absence, the third baseman apparently feels as though he plays enough already.
A former first round draft pick, injuries and suspensions have limited Rendon to a total of 148 appearances out of a possible 486 games since 2021. This absence has come under the guise of a seven-year, $245 million deal that he inked with the Angels in 2020.
On a recent appearance as a guest on the Jack Vita Show, Anthony Rendon said something to enrage fans. According to the 33-year old, the 162-game MLB season is too long. According to Rendon, the league needs to "shorten this bad boy up."
"nobody hates baseball more than one of the game’s highest paid players who gets paid not to play" - Jarred Carrabis
Although Rendon complained of a "185 day season", he has not been active in anywhere close to that number of games since playing on the Washington Nationals in 2019. After MLB analyst Jarred Carrabis posted Anthony Rendon's claims, fans began to have a field day.
For the first six seasons of his career, Rendon was, rightfully, held in very high esteem. A sixth overall pick for the Nationals in 2008, Rendon won a Silver Slugger in his sophomore MLB season of 2014, slashing .287/.351/.473 with 21 home runs, 83 RBIs, and a league-best 111 runs.
However, since coming to the Los Angeles Angels in 2020, fans in SoCal have struggled to see Rendon in uniform for any sort of sustained period of time. In his first 12 games with the Angels, Rendon went 0-for-28. Subsequently, he would fail to reach the 60-game mark in any of his seasons with the Angels, mostly on account of injury, with the odd suspension thrown in as well.
Anthony Rendon serves as a cautionary tale against huge deals
Somewhat recently, analyst Jeff Passan came under fire for criticizing Wander Franco's franchise-record $182 million deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. Passan claimed that signing players to large contracts only serves to invite a large degree of risk for teams.
Although he was slammed by many fans, Anthony Rendon's seemingly endless absence makes Passan's point look like a good one. However, with an attitude like this, it is small wonder that fans do not seem to miss him too much.