Even if signing him after the 2019 season was never in the cards, the Seattle Mariners are still one of 29 teams that can count themselves lucky that they weren’t the ones to give Anthony Rendon a seven-year, $245 million contract.

The Los Angeles Angels did, and the book on that deal is about to be closed. And what a tough read it was, as Rendon played in only 257 games and produced 3.9 rWAR for the Angels between 2020 and 2024. He did not play in 2025 after undergoing hip surgery, and now ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez reports that Rendon and the Angels are discussing a buyout of the last year of his contract. The 35-year-old is also expected to retire.

The Angels signed Rendon after he had posted a 1.010 OPS in the regular season, and then helped lead the Washington Nationals to their first ever World Series title. For their part, the Mariners organization must have been watching and thinking: “That could have been us.”

Anthony Rendon could have been a Mariners star before he became an Angels bust

The Mariners had the No. 2 pick in the 2011 MLB Draft, for which MLB Pipeline had Rendon ranked as the second-best prospect after Gerrit Cole. Though his college career at Rice had been not infrequently interrupted by injuries, he had hit .373/.505/.680 over 187 games. He profiled as a plus hitter with plus power, with potentially plus defense at third base.

“We liked Rendon… a lot,” former Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said in 2019, according to Corey Brock of The Athletic. “Going into the draft, he was probably the player a lot of people thought we were going to take… and we did, too.”

Yet after the Pittsburgh Pirates chose Cole with the No. 1 pick, the Mariners flinched and drafted Danny Hultzen at No. 2. It wasn’t a reach, as the lefty out of Virginia was ranked as MLB Pipeline’s No. 3 prospect for the 2011 draft. He was seen as having both the stuff and the pitching acumen to one day rise to the top of a major league rotation.

Alas, every Mariners fan knows what happened next. Hultzen had a solid debut season in the high minors in 2012, but then his left shoulder fell apart. The rest of his pro career consisted of only 41 appearances in the minors and majors. When he finally made his MLB debut in September of 2019, it was not for the Mariners, but for the Chicago Cubs.

Rendon, meanwhile, debuted in D.C. in 2013 and went on to post 30.3 rWAR in seven seasons with the Nationals. In his final run-up to free agency between 2017 and 2019, he was the sixth-most valuable hitter in MLB.

The “What if?” concerning Rendon’s Mariners career that never was is unavoidable. He could have shared lineups in the mid- and late-2010s with the likes of Robinson Canó, Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager and Mitch Haniger. Maybe he would have made the difference in seasons where the Mariners were good but not good enough to make the playoffs, such as 2014, 2016 and 2018.

We’ll obviously never know, and it’s not as if history can be undone. And for what it’s worth, the Mariners’ miss on Hultzen isn’t a one-of-a-kind regret from the 2011 draft. History has proven that year’s draft class to have been absolutely loaded, yet Seattle isn’t the only club that missed out on landing one of its top talents.

As for Rendon, his retirement will put an end to a truly painful finish to a great career. But lest anyone feel sorry for him, he gets to keep the money and not playing baseball anymore figures to suit him just fine.