OC Register: Angels’ Anthony Rendon looks for rebound after two straight injury-marred seasons

[Taylor]

17 hours ago, Brian Ilten said:

Translation - "If I don't feel 100%, I'm not going to play. You gave me my payday and I am going to spend it on my kids"

He sounds like one of those snowflake woke libnuts who expects a paycheck for doing no work.

[Jay]

1 minute ago, Taylor said:

He seems like one of those work-optional snowflake woke libnuts.

Yeah

[Angel Oracle]

9 minutes ago, The Ghost of Bob Starr said:

Well we appeared to get the right guy but I don’t know anything about the medical vetting of a player.  We seem to not be good at that.  

Pujols - Crouched stance has to put a lot of pressure on the legs.

Hamilton - Already seemed to have defeatist attitude when loafing after a bade hit that got by him in the last game of 2012 season.

Rendon - Also has a bit of a crouched stance.

[Erstad Grit]

7 minutes ago, Stradling said:

But you see you are a grown up and understand things.  We have revisionist history because people hate Arte and hate Rendon so they try to tell us we didn’t need a third baseman we needed pitching. Bullshit, we needed both and got the best 3rd baseman in the league in his prime. Then his body failed him. 

You're 100% correct.

However...

I take issue with the Angel's process on deciding which players to offer massive contracts to.
Dodgers consistently spend the big money wisely with guys like Greinke, Betts, and now Freeman. 

Right now overpaying for Cole looks a lot smarter than getting Rendon at a bargain. 

Yes I was excited about Rendon, but my career isn't based on deciding if Rendon warrants that contract.

Looking backwards there was ample evidence IMO to see the problems with Pujols, Hamilton, Wells, GMJ, Rendon, and all the other big salaries we've flushed down the toilet. 

I'm over the "bad luck" and "unforeseen injuries" excuses.

We suck at identifying the right players to go big on, and my hunch is the problem is Arte.  

[Erstad Grit]

11 minutes ago, Jay said:

The injury to the shin was kind of a freak thing, it's not like his body broke down all by itself.

If Rendon kicked ass all the way leading up to this injury I'd agree with you. 

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Erstad Grit said:

You're 100% correct.

However...

I take issue with the Angel's process on deciding which players to offer massive contracts to.
Dodgers consistently spend the big money wisely with guys like Greinke, Betts, and now Freeman. 

Right now overpaying for Cole looks a lot smarter than getting Rendon at a bargain. 

Yes I was excited about Rendon, but my career isn't based on deciding if Rendon warrants that contract.

Looking backwards there was ample evidence IMO to see the problems with Pujols, Hamilton, Wells, GMJ, Rendon, and all the other big salaries we've flushed down the toilet. 

I'm over the "bad luck" and "unforeseen injuries" excuses.

We suck at identifying the right players to go big on, and my hunch is the problem is Arte.  

Ok, but they were never signing Cole.  If he wanted to be an Angel he would have been an Angel.  They offered him $300 million according to reports. I didn’t call it bad luck nor did I call it unforeseen injuries.  I laid out facts, we needed a third baseman, we signed the best third baseman and then he played great in year one, albeit a shortened season, then injuries happened.  

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

If Rendon kicked ass all the way leading up to this injury I'd agree with you. 

I think there is a ton of value in going out on minor league rehab assignments, but for whatever reason the team doesn’t always do that.  But Rendon hasn’t even played enough to get into a rhythm.  

[Duren, Duren]

He's only in it for the money. Plain and simple. 

He already has his World Series win and cashed in at the exact right time for him. After that series win it was like the end of a competitive career building chapter for him. All creating an ideal free agency scenario. And it seemed that when he signed the contract with Arte his main comments were more about family environment and comfort than baseball. 

After getting the dream contract the results speak for themselves. Forget the injury prone history for a moment. 

You'd expect leadership, enthusiasm, gratitude to the organization and a ball busting work ethic. As well as being more fan friendly and media co-operative. 

Instead he has been reluctant to take a leadership role on and off the field. He may have an introvert personality, but his comments and actions seem to show that he's just not willing or able to embrace the role he's being paid for. 

It's like he's serving a term reluctantly, counting the days till it ends. 

The proneness to injuries is bad luck. But lf good luck is the residue of hard work as the saying goes.  What about bad luck? 

Working in a business with real risks to health is a big part of the equation. But I also think that mindset is also a factor. Subconsciously if you aren't happy and focussed on the task at hand you lose an edge with your reflexes and concentration. I'm not saying that has been a direct cause, but it may have factored in to some degree. And mindset affects basic play and athletic skills too.  

Attitude and motivation do have a bigger role in the recuperative process. I wouldn't accuse him of faking or hiding behind excuses. He may have a low tolerance for pain, but it's also is an unwritten expectation for professional athletes to play at less than 100% comfort level. Most actually do over the course of a season. 

But if getting back onto the field isn't a high priority then obviously he won't play with minor pain or discomfort. Which should be a moral obligation given his contract  if the injuries aren't likely to get worse or be debilitating. If they medically have longer term risks then he should just be shut down for the season and be re-evaluated in the future.

Maybe finesse a medically based  settlement and retirement rather than endure four more years of this. Age will probably aggravate chronic weaknesses and thus more of the same.   

At this stage it is what it is. Not good for anyone 

 

[Erstad Grit]

12 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Ok, but they were never signing Cole.  If he wanted to be an Angel he would have been an Angel.  They offered him $300 million according to reports. I didn’t call it bad luck nor did I call it unforeseen injuries.  I laid out facts, we needed a third baseman, we signed the best third baseman and then he played great in year one, albeit a shortened season, then injuries happened.  

I understand not landing Cole. I think he probably used Angels as leverage to get as much as he could in NY. I'm fine with that.

However I'm suggesting we continually have disastrous results with our big money FA signings and acquisitions. 

Vlad and Hunter were great.
CJ was OK, actually better than most here remember.

Maybe Iglesias would have been OK, but we dumped him. 

The looooong list are those who were train wrecks. Not even merely faster decline than we hoped or expected.

Pujols never received one MVP vote here.

Organizationally we fail at determining which big FA to acquire. 

For me this is larger than Rendon has injuries and says weird stuff. 

[NJHalo]

I heard from a very good source last night that Rendon doesn’t want to play anymore, and that has been his attitude for a while now.

[Tank]

On 8/19/2023 at 8:55 AM, REDneck said:

Rendon should try wearing pantyhose a garter belt and breathing thru his eyelids.

the rose goes in front, big guy.

[AngelsLakersFan]

23 hours ago, NJHalo said:

I heard from a very good source last night that Rendon doesn’t want to play anymore, and that has been his attitude for a while now.

Shocking

[AngelsLakersFan]

On 8/19/2023 at 10:16 AM, Erstad Grit said:

I understand not landing Cole. I think he probably used Angels as leverage to get as much as he could in NY. I'm fine with that.

However I'm suggesting we continually have disastrous results with our big money FA signings and acquisitions. 

Vlad and Hunter were great.
CJ was OK, actually better than most here remember.

Maybe Iglesias would have been OK, but we dumped him. 

The looooong list are those who were train wrecks. Not even merely faster decline than we hoped or expected.

Pujols never received one MVP vote here.

Organizationally we fail at determining which big FA to acquire. 

For me this is larger than Rendon has injuries and says weird stuff. 

I think it's simply that competitive players see no reason to sign here. Instead, this team is attractive to players looking to start their retirement in Newport Beach and get paid without needing produce or without being questioned by fans and the media.

[BTH]

On 8/19/2023 at 10:41 AM, NJHalo said:

I heard from a very good source last night that Rendon doesn’t want to play anymore, and that has been his attitude for a while now.

Source: “dude, trust me”

[BTH]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I think it's simply that competitive players see no reason to sign here. Instead, this team is attractive to players looking to start their retirement in Newport Beach and get paid without needing produce or without being questioned by fans and the media.

I’d love to know if this is actually how players view the Angels.

Maybe that’s @Jeff Fletcher’s next great informative article.

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Shocking

Believe this 100

[AngelsLakersFan]

22 minutes ago, Trendon said:

I’d love to know if this is actually how players view the Angels.

Maybe that’s @Jeff Fletcher’s next great informative article.

At the very least you'd have to know that highly competitive players are not going to choose the Angels naturally as their first choice. You are pretty much signing up to play on a losing team for all of those years.

When talking free agents you are also dealing with a subset of players who are typically on the wrong side of their careers and no longer have the financial motivation in place to keep them giving 100%

It's sort of like how the Rockies have a hard time signing pitchers. 

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

At the very least you'd have to know that highly competitive players are not going to choose the Angels naturally as their first choice. You are pretty much signing up to play on a losing team for all of those years.

When talking free agents you are also dealing with a subset of players who are typically on the wrong side of their careers and no longer have the financial motivation in place to keep them giving 100%

It's sort of like how the Rockies have a hard time signing pitchers. 

You are projecting. Players are competitive by nature. They also believe they could be the difference makers between winning and losing. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

8 minutes ago, Stradling said:

You are projecting. Players are competitive by nature. They also believe they could be the difference makers between winning and losing. 

Players who are competetive by nature are not going to sign with the Angels.

[m0nkey]

2024 will be different! Heard it here first

[Stradling]

10 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Players who are competetive by nature are not going to sign with the Angels.

Ok. So then I guess we have an excellent chance at re-signing Ohtani.  That’s good to hear. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

2 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Ok. So then I guess we have an excellent chance at re-signing Ohtani.  That’s good to hear. 

When Ohtani came over he was a prospect trying to convince a team to let him try to do something no one had done in 100 years. Signing with a winning team was not his top priority.

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

When Ohtani came over he was a prospect trying to convince a team to let him try to do something no one had done in 100 years. Signing with a winning team was not his top priority.

Yet according to Fletcher other teams gave him the option to be a two way player, obviously one of those teams were more competitive. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Yet according to Fletcher other teams gave him the option to be a two way player, obviously one of those teams were more competitive. 

Who can say what motivates Ohtani. Let's hope it's not winning.

[Blarg]

I am always surprised how so few of you get what is holding Rendon back from playing are doctors and not Rendon. He doesn't choose his return, only the treating physician makes that determination when he is fit to return to baseball activities and then he has to pass the Angels medical and training staff as to what he can do to what extent.