BILLINGS — The New York Yankees were certainly on to something in 2018. Then-Dawson Community College baseball head coach Chris Lewis saw the future, too.
When the Yankees plucked DCC assistant coach Aaron Leanhardt from the Glendive school, the announcement likely sent many people to scratch their heads. Going from junior college baseball straight to a Major League Baseball organization? Just like that? An assistant coach, no less?
Lewis wasn’t one of those puzzled by the Yankees’ move to hire Leanhardt as a minor league hitting coach, however.
“It is great to see good people get rewarded with opportunities like this,” Lewis was quoted as saying in a May 31, 2018 press release from Dawson. “Whether he stays in Minor League Baseball, goes up to the Major League level, or returns to college, he is going to have a very bright future.
“Our college, our program, our players and myself, were very blessed to have him be a part of Buccaneer Baseball this past season.”
Seven years later Leanhardt is no longer part of the Yankees. He’s now the field coordinator with the Miami Marlins, but his name is linked to one of the hottest stories in the early going of the 2025 MLB season: The “torpedo" bat.
The story exploded over the weekend when the Yankees crushed a team-record nine home runs Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers in a 20-9 win. The rejuvenated Bronx Bombers hit another four homers on Sunday.
Some of the players who went deep were using what quickly came to be called “torpedo" bats because of their odd shapes. The bats are custom-made for the particular tendencies of individual players and are designed so that they have the most density where that player usually makes contact with the ball.
And the person most associated with the design of the bats is Leanhardt, though in a New York Times story published on Sunday in The Athletic (subscription required) he said it was a group effort that started in 2022.
“Credit goes to those who take it,” Leanhardt, 48, was quoted as saying in author Brendan Kuty’s story. “But if people want to ascribe credit to different people, then I’ll take some cut of it.”
According to the story on The Athletic web site, Leanhardt has degrees from Michigan (engineering) and MIT (a Ph.D. in physics) and taught physics at Michigan for eight years.
Leanhardt left the physics world for the physical world of baseball, though, and began coaching in the Atlantic League in 2017 before joining the staff at Dawson.
The rest, as they say, is history. And let that history show that Leanhardt’s one season at DCC made a big impression on Lewis.
“He hasn’t spent a lot of time in college baseball, but it didn’t take long for folks to start to notice the unique skill set that he brings to the table,” stated Lewis in that same press release. “Not only does he understand hitting as it relates to coaching, he understands the numbers, the data and the science behind it as well.”
