FanHouse Rudy Jaramillo

Year in and year out the Texas Rangers are one of the best offenses in baseball, routinely finishing among the league leaders in runs scored and home runs. While the players have come and gone through the door, the one constant has always been hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo.

Jaramillo has spent the last 15 seasons with the Rangers and helped mold young players into batting champions and MVPs, but after a down season for the Rangers offensively, it seems both Jaramillo and the Rangers have decided to make a change. After receiving a one-year offer from the Rangers to return in 2010, Jaramillo has decided he's going to end his time in Arlington and test the open market.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- It was something Dodgers fans rarely saw from Andruw Jones last year: a home run.

The Dodgers fans in attendance during Saturday night's Rangers-Dodgers game booed Jones during four trips to the plate. The Rangers fans cheered Jones when he hit a tying home run to right field in the sixth inning.

Though the Dodgers won, 3-1, it was Jones getting a little revenge on the Dodgers for giving up on him last year. Jones is still upset with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt for letting him out of his contract last year.

OAKLAND -- Rangers hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo has a thing for fixer-uppers.

In 2007, the Rangers signed Sammy Sosa out of his one-year retirement and coaxed another 21 homers out of him.

In 2008, the Rangers got Milton Bradley after he had spent most of the previous year on the disabled list, and Bradley became an All-Star.

Now, the Rangers have Andruw Jones, a former MVP-caliber player who was run out of Los Angeles after a disastrous year. A month into the season, Jones seems to have rediscovered at least a part of his game.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

He's only 21 years old. He's only 21 years old. Whenever you get frustrated that your future fantasy stud is struggling, it's important to take a breather and repeat those words. When I was 21, I think I spent my Wednesday nights playing Counter-Strike and eating bad pizza. Justin Upton, on the other hand, has to deal with expectations that he's the next Willie Mays. Whatever happened to the 27-year-old "breakout" rule? Suddenly it's six years younger?

When Andruw Jones turned down the New York Yankees offer of a minor-league contract because he was holding out for a team to give him a Major League contract, it seemed a bit laughable. After all, for the last year the only thing anybody has said about Jones is that he's fat and no longer good at baseball. Claims that can be backed up by the Dodgers paying him money to just go away and the fact that his winter league team cut him.

Well, it appears as though Jones may get the last laugh on all of us. Word out of Texas is that the Rangers are seriously considering giving Andruw a shot at centerfield.

When the Mets utterly and completely collapsed in the final few weeks of the season to miss a playoff berth that looked preordained for much of the year, there was a lot of speculation regarding whether Willie Randolph would be brought back.

Eventually the Mets did announce that his job is secure, but are they trying to bring a potential replacement on board in case things go sour next year? It's hard to say, but that's one way to interpret their interest in Rangers hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, whose contract expires in a couple of weeks. From Newsday:

Jaramillo was a finalist for the Mets' managerial job that went to Randolph. That would raise eyebrows considering the organization let Randolph squirm for 48 hours before confirming he'd return for a fourth season as skipper. But those who know Jaramillo believe he's content as a hitting coach and doesn't have managerial ambitions now.

For the moment, the Mets' interest isn't believed to extend beyond bringing Jaramillo on as the hitting coach, but his status as a former finalist for the head job makes this situation one worth watching. There should be a lot of competition for Jaramillo, though, as he's widely regarded as perhaps the best hitting coach in the game -- if the Mets get him, they'll likely have to outbid several teams, including the Rangers.