Rendon opening up more
Veteran third baseman remains valuable ‘enigma’ in Washington
All he ever wanted was to be left alone to do his thing, his thing being playing baseball at a level only a handful of human beings on the planet could match, then going home and sinking into the embrace of his loved ones. Stepping outside of himself, revealing himself to anyone outside his orbit — that was never part of Anthony Rendon’s game. Social media? No thanks. Interviews? No way. Promotional videos? Only if his employers, the Washington Nationals, made him.
It wasn’t that he was difficult or misanthropic — only intensely private and possessed of a deep humility, instilled in him as a child in Houston, that led him to shun any suggestion that he was special because of his singular talent to square up a baseball with a wooden bat. Teachers don’t have to give interviews every day. Oil rig workers don’t have to film promotional videos. Why should he?
“You just envision me as a baseball player, and so you think I’m better than someone else?” Rendon said. “It makes no sense.”
And then, one day in the summer of 2015, he met the Academy kids.
In the end, it was those kids — the 165 or so students at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington — who first drew Rendon in, then drew him out. It was their stories and their innocence that led him to answer a call he hadn’t heard before, and to recognize the power his status as a highly visible public figure afforded him.
And it is his association with those kids — first as the designated player-representative to the Academy’s board of directors since 2016, and most recently as a six-figure donor — that, here at the end of Rendon’s fifth full season in Washington, has helped alter the narrative regarding his relationship with the franchise as he enters a new chapter in his life and what could be a pivotal offseason for him.
In July, Rendon, 28, became a father for the first time, his wife, Amanda, giving birth to a daughter, Emma. And now, with Bryce Harper possibly departing via free agency this winter, Rendon could be poised to become the most important and most prominent position player on the team — the figure around whom the Nationals would construct a lineup, a roster and a culture.
Though Rendon missed three weeks early in the season with a foot injury, a massive September (.382/.472/.708 entering Wednesday) has him on track to put up some of the best numbers of his career in 2018. Since the start of 2014, when Rendon, the sixth overall pick of the 2011 draft out of Rice University, established himself in the majors, only five position players — Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve, Josh Donaldson and Paul Goldschmidt Nationals star Anthony Rendon has found a reason to come out of his shell a bit this season. — have been more valuable, according to FanGraphs.
And with Rendon himself approaching free agency at the end of 2019, it stands to reason that the Nationals, should they lose Harper, would quickly initiate talks with Rendon regarding a long-term extension.
Harper and Rendon share an agent, Scott Boras, who has a history of taking his clients to free agency rather than inking long-term extensions beforehand. However, another Boras client, Stephen Strasburg, is an exception, signing a seven-year, $175 million extension in 2016.
“He’s his own man,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said of Rendon. “I think in that way he’s similar to [Strasburg]. He’s very educated in the business end of it.”
Another team official, however, acknowledged it’s difficult to ascertain what Rendon is thinking. “He’s an enigma,” the official said. But maybe Rendon likes it that way. It was the Academy kids who, in a roundabout way, led Rendon to a table in a hotel restaurant in Philadelphia one recent morning, during a lateseason road trip, for one of the few lengthy interviews he has consented to. The Nationals’ communications department and YBA executive director Tal Alter convinced him that, despite his misgivings, talking about the Academy and his recent donation could spur additional donors.
“I think there’s this part of Anthony that probably doesn’t want to let on how much he cares,” Alter said. “It’s not that he doesn’t say it or show it, but I think he likes being a little difficult to read. So his lack of promotion of himself is part of that. The more you invite people in, the more they’re going to form opinions of you.”
Over coffee, Rendon takes a few awkward moments to warm up, acknowledging the obvious: this wasn’t his idea.
“I love baseball. I love being on the field. I love competing,” he said. “But I’m not a fan of everything that comes with it. No offense — I’m not a fan of the interviews. I’m not a fan of people coming in the clubhouse. I’m not a fan of everyone treating you different because you play a sport. How am I different than anyone else? I’m a human being, and I have my faults, too.”
But, eventually, he becomes animated talking about the connection he has formed with the kids of the Academy.
“I really think it’s me still being a kid inside,” he says. “I’m not that far removed from thinking what they’re thinking.” Asked what he gets out of his involvement, Rendon says, “I don’t want anything out of it. . . . But I think hanging out with these kids and hearing their stories and knowing I’m trying to make a difference, maybe that’s what I get out of it. I’m getting emotionally attached.”