One of the last unsigned idols accessible, third baseman Anthony Rendon received his new home Wednesday night, indicating a seven-year, $245 million with the Los Angeles Angels as first referred to by Jon Heyman. Rendon, who finished third in the National League MVP voting and prepared his first All-Star appearance in 2019, hit. 319/.412 /. 598 for 7.0 War in 2019, all occupation bests. A key is part of the World Champion Washington Nationals, Rendon’s difference leaves a beings opening in D.C.’s lineup.

That Rendon has achieved this much is a excellent resurgence legend given the obstacles he faced early in his career. While it’s hard to characterize a first-rounder as a true-blue underdog, Rendon had several ankle surgeries in college from harms and partially undermine his other ankle in his second professional game for the High-A Potomac Nationals in a non-contact injury. But since 2015′ s knee and abdomen injuries, he’s managed to stay healthful and crucially, the injuries didn’t appear to thwart his developing. Over the last four years, Rendon’s only averaged 15 missing competitions a year. That’s not Ripken-like, but it’s enough to articulated the hurt worries on the back-burner.

Among position players, Rendon has been fourth in WAR over the last three years, behind exclusively Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, and Christian Yelich.

Rendon’s contract with the Angels is a whopper, guaranteeing him $35 million a year. It does come with a certain amount of probability, as there’s a very real difference in the future outlook of a free agent who is going to turn 30 versus one who’s only 25 or 26. Seven years — rather than the 10 times the Angels imparted to Albert Pujols — reduce the risk at the back-end of the contract. And unlike Pujols, Rendon likewise wasn’t showing signs of decline before signing his deal.

The Angels missed out on Gerrit Cole, and wisely turned instant to the next-best player on the market rather than bemoan losing a dictate fighting to the Yankees. If Rendon had signed with the Dodgers, that team would have had to do great shuffling to get the most from Rendon, moving a perfectly good player in Justin Turner off of third base. The Angels, a team with a number of holes, don’t have any roadblocks to only sticking Rendon in the middle of the order and causing him help the team stop squandering Mike Trout’s prime. An infield of Rendon, David Fletcher, and Andrelton Simmons might single-handedly smother the league-average for BABIP on groundballs.

The ZiPS estimations for Rendon feel a little light; that’s the case for a few reasons. The first issue is that parties tend to overrate just how health a participate is in accordance with his 30 s, so a great deal of the missing WAR is ZiPS hedging its harm gambles. In this case, it’s purely based on age and primacy; Rendon’s early-career hurts are too far back for the computer to care about. ZiPS too consumes a mix of defensive stats rather than just UZR in its Campaign. I’d still take the over on the projections, but they’re not as crazy-bearish as first glance might advocate 😛 TAGEND

ZiPS Estimate- Anthony Rendon

Year BA OBP SLG AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB OPS+ DR WAR

2020 .276. 363 .499 525 89 145 35 2 26 97 68 92 5 131 5 4.4

2021 .273. 359 .493 499 83 136 34 2 24 92 63 87 5 128 4 3.9

2022 .270. 356 .481 478 78 129 31 2 22 85 60 81 5 125 3 3.4

2023 .263. 347 .461 456 71 120 28 1 20 77 55 76 4 117 2 2.7

2024 .258. 339 .440 430 64 111 25 1 17 68 49 68 4 110 1 2.1

2025 .252. 329 .408 404 56 102 22 1 13 59 43 59 3 99 -1 1.2

2026 .245. 318 .387 375 48 92 18 1 11 50 36 51 2 91 -2 0.6

Given Rendon’s age, the contract is likely a bit of an overpay from a unadulterated cost standpoint, but as I’ve noted repeatedly in the past, any team with Mike Trout on the roster is essentially ” pot-committed” to winning activities. The crew has done a generally bad activity of making a listing around Trout, and going a wizard third baseman is a nice way to ameliorate the situation. The Angels still need to upgrade their gyration, which is in the bottom third of the tournament, so they ought not to consider the offseason complete fairly yet.

But when it comes to Rendon, my thumbs are firmly locked in the upright position.

var SERVER_DATA= Object.assign( SERVER_DATA || );

Read more: blogs.fangraphs.com