Anthony Rendon news is a reason Yankees fans should be grateful this Thanksgiving

Yes, we criticize the New York Yankees plenty. And a lot of that stems from a lack of consistent, impact activity in free agency and on the trade market. Like back after the 2019 offseason, for example, when they signed Gerrit Cole (great job) and not a single other major league player (what? how?).

We will say this, though. While the Yankees make their fair share of mistakes, they don't do anything egregious as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim do. One of the other big-name free agents that offseason? Anthony Rendon. He signed a seven-year, $245 million contract with the Halos and ... it was arguably the worst deal in professional sports history.

According to the latest reports on Wednesday, via ESPN's Alden Gonzalez, the Angels are looking to end their relationship with Rendon. The two sides are said to be in talks about a contract buyout, with Rendon expected to retire.

Rendon, across just 257 games since the start of 2020 due to injuries (among other issues, like when he got into a physical altercation with a fan), amassed just 3.9 WAR as a member of the Angels. They paid $62.82 million per WAR while Rendon averaged 41 games per season during the four full years from 2021-2025. This legitimately has to be the worst contract in MLB history.

We can go back and look at plenty of Yankees Disaster Deals, like Carl Pavano, Jacoby Ellsbury, Kei Igawa, JA Happ, Zack Britton, Josh Donaldson, Joey Gallo and many more, and those are a mere footnote in the Rendon saga. The Angels might take the cake as the worst overall in baseball history with Rendon, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols' contracts. It doesn't get more painful than that — $624 million in sunk costs.

That's led to some notable futility from the Angels, who have only seen Mike Trout take 12 postseason at-bats. Anaheim has just one playoff appearance since 2010, and zero playoff wins since 2009. Imagine that being your fate as a big-market team?

It's just a worthwhile reminder that Yankees fans have it pretty damn good. The 2001 World Series and 2004 collapse are surely two of the worst fan experiences of a lifetime lumped into a three-year period, but the Yankees still remain one of the best franchises in the sport despite many other playoff failures from 2001-2025.

At the end of the day, we're hard on the ones we love. The essence of fandom is love-hate. It's just unfortunate for Yankees fans that there's been a lot more hate over the last couple of decades. It doesn't mean we're ungrateful. Many of us are very aware of the overall success, rich history and impressive consistency. We just always want more.

But during this Thanksgiving holiday, let's sit back, give thanks to our entertaining (yet frustrating) baseball team, and be appreciative that we weren't born Angels fans. It could always be worse.