Major League Baseball has announced the managers for the 2025 Arizona Fall League (AFL) season. Jesus Azuaje (Surprise), Eric Duncan (Glendale), Aaron Leanhardt (Mesa), Julio Morillo (Peoria), Eric Patterson (Salt River), and René Rivera (Scottsdale) will manage some of the top prospects in baseball.
Known throughout baseball as the finishing school for Major League Baseball’s future stars, the AFL returns to the Valley for its 33rd season. Over 30 former AFL managers/coaches have become MLB managers, including current skippers Kevin Cash (TB), Terry Francona (CIN), A.J. Hinch (DET), Torey Lovullo (AZ), Mike Shildt (SD), and Ron Washington (LAA).
Mesa Solar Sox: Aaron Leanhardt (Miami Marlins)
Aaron Leanhardt is set to manage for the first time in his professional career. Leanhardt, 48, is currently the Major League Field Coordinator for the Miami Marlins, having joined the organization this past offseason. He got his start in baseball in 2017, serving as an assistant coach in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League and at Montana’s Dawson Community College. He was also a volunteer assistant coach for the Duluth Huskies of the Northwoods League in 2018. After working in various leagues, Leanhardt was hired by the New York Yankees in May of 2018 as a minor league hitting coach before moving up to an Assistant Minor League Hitting Coach Coordinator in 2022.
Leanhardt is also known as the inventor of the “torpedo bat,” a custom-designed baseball bat with a torpedo shape, which has a thicker barrel in the traditional sweet spot and a thinner tip. The bat’s purpose is to help hitters put more weight on the part of the bat where they make the most contact.
Leanhardt graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (1995-1999). He then moved on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated with a PhD in Physics (1999-2003). In college, he participated in a NASA-funded research study in which scientists cooled a sodium gas to the lowest temperature ever recorded. After graduating, he worked as a physics professor at his alma mater in Michigan from 2007-2014.
