DEL.ICIO.USAndruw’s comeback Texas-sized
For the AJC
Thursday, June 18, 2009
ARLINGTON, Texas — It took Andruw Jones all of four months to announce that Texas is where he’d like to finish his career. It took him much less time, however, to make that decision in his head.
All it took was a couple of sessions of work with Rangers hitting instructor Rudy Jaramillo back in January when Jones was an unsigned, unwanted free agent coming off perhaps the worst offensive season in the past 30 years.
Richard W. Rodriguez / Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Andruw Jones, seen here slugging a home run against his former team, the Dodgers, has resurrected his career with the Texas Rangers.
“I don’t want to say Rudy changed me,” Jones said last week before hitting homers in consecutive games against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with whom he spent the nightmarish 2008 season. “But he gave me a lot of knowledge very quickly. He made it very easy to understand. I had been doing things wrong for a lot of years and had some great years that way. I’d like to see what I can do for a full year now that I’m doing things right.”
Jones is simply the latest disciple of Jaramillo, the Rangers hitting instructor for the past 15 seasons. In nearly cult-like fashion almost every one of them, from former Braves player Mark DeRosa to Marietta’s Marlon Byrd, has spouted similar endorsements of Jaramillo, the highest-paid hitting instructor in the game.
Based on first glance, Jones, 32, who was very nearly out of the game this winter, is having a moderate amount of success with the Rangers. In a part-time role, primarily as the DH, Jones was hitting .246 with a .358 on-base percentage through Wednesday. His two homers against the Dodgers gave him seven for the year and pushed his RBI total to 17.
That would be modest by most standards, but it represents a huge leap forward for Jones. He has already more than doubled his 2008 home run total (three) and surpassed his RBI total (14), which, along with a .158 batting average, was the detritus of the first year of a two-year, $36 million deal with the Dodgers.
His batting average was the lowest in the past 30 years for a player with at least 200 at-bats and the eighth lowest in the past 100 seasons. He managed to play only 75 games because of a knee problem, potentially exacerbated by extra weight. He played more than 150 games in each of the previous 11 seasons with the Braves.
The poor performance led to lots of boos and an uncomfortable relationship with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who Jones said didn’t treat him with respect when he was struggling. It all led to Jones and the Dodgers negotiating to sever ties after the season.
He was unsigned in January when he took agent Scott Boras’ advice and asked to work out with Jaramillo.
“All I saw was the bat speed,” Jaramillo said. “I knew we had a lot of work to do, but I knew the guy had ability and there was no doubt in my mind he could get it back.”
After a couple of workouts with Jaramillo, Jones worked out for the Rangers, who were seemingly set at outfield positions and the DH spot. But the club was willing to take a flier on a no-risk minor league deal that included the ability for the sides to part amicably midway through spring training.
Jaramillo immediately set about tutoring Jones on his five-step program that focuses on timing and pitch recognition. In short, Jaramillo thought Jones had been jumping at pitches for a couple of seasons. While the steps in Jaramillo’s plan aren’t ground-breaking, his pupils often talk about how easy he makes it to grasp.
“He makes you believe,” said Byrd, a .238 hitter in the three seasons before joining the Rangers and a .300 hitter in two-plus seasons in Texas. “He makes you understand your swing. He helps you get to a point where you can make adjustments quickly. When I came here, I was shot mentally. I think the same thing applied to Andruw. Rudy got us right mentally.”
Said Jones: “He explained stuff in a way that is really easy to understand. When I left working with him, I felt good about my swing.”
Nevertheless, it took him time to change his swing habits. He struck out nine of the first 14 at-bats in spring training. And when it came time to make a decision in the spring, Rangers general manager Jon Daniels had no choice but to tell Jones he wouldn’t make the team as a full-time player and probably wouldn’t make it at all. Jones could have walked away at that point.
Instead, Jones went to both Daniels and manager Ron Washington and said he’d have no problem accepting a part-time role, if it got him more time to work with Jaramillo.
“He made us know this is where he wanted to be,” Daniels said. “That meant a lot to us.”
“I was coming off a bad year, a terrible year, really,” Jones said. “Nobody was going to give me a full-time job. This was the best situation for me. I wanted to do whatever I needed to just make the team.”
What the first-place Rangers have found since is a guy with an excellent work ethic who still carries a presence in the middle of a lineup. Jones has ended up hitting fourth this season in more games than any Ranger and has a 1.013 on-base-plus-slugging percentage there, fourth among AL cleanup hitters with at least 20 games.
It has Jones once again thinking about a future in baseball, instead of trying to recapture the past.
“This is where I want to be,” Jones said. “It’s a great group of guys with a great future. It’s a good situation for me. It would be a great spot to take your career to the end.”
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