Carlos Cardoza - Manager
Cardoza returns to Double-A Frisco in 2025 for his third season after managing the RoughRiders to an 84-54 record last season, falling in the first round of the playoffs.
The .609 winning percentage during the regular season marked the best year in Frisco franchise history. Cardoza is the first Riders manager to return for a third season since Joe Mikulik managed five-straight years from 2015-2019.
Cardoza’s 148-127 (.538) record through two years already puts him fourth in franchise history in wins among 10 total managers.
Following the 2023 season, he managed the Surprise Saguaros of the Arizona Fall League to an AFL Championship and was a bench coach in the Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League in Puerto Rico with Cangrejeros (Crab Eaters) de Santurce.
The Puerto Rico native piloted the Hickory Crawdads to a 66-65 record in 2022 and has amassed a 376-280 (.573) total over his seven seasons as a skipper. With Down East, he took the Wood Ducks to the Low-A East Championship Series before falling to Charleston.
Prior to his time in Down East, he managed the Arizona League Rangers (2019), winning the AZL Championship, and Dominican Summer League Rangers (2016-2019), twice reaching the championship series.
Hired on by the Rangers in 2015, Cardoza was the head coach at his alma mater, Decatur High School, in Georgia for two years.
As a player, Cardoza spent two seasons at Georgia State University and two years at Armstrong Atlantic State, where he was a gold glove second baseman and All-Peach Belt Conference selection.
Julio Valdez - Pitching Coach
Julio Valdez joins Frisco after serving as the pitching coach for High-A Hickory in 2024 and with Low-A Down East before that in 2023.
Starting his sixth season with the Rangers organization, he had previously held the same role for the Arizona Complex League Rangers (2022) and the Dominican Summer League Rangers (2020-2021).
Valdez started his coaching career with his alma mater, Alabama State, in 2017 before transitioning to the Director of Pitching at the Texas Pitching Institute in El Paso. He spent two years at TPI before taking the same role at Baseball Rebellion in Durham, his last stop before joining the Rangers organization.
Ryan Tuntland - Hitting Coach
Tuntland will return to Frisco in 2025 after serving as the club’s hitting coach in both 2023 and 2024.
Under Tuntland, the 2024 RoughRiders finished third in franchise history with 150 steals and fifth in walks (481). In 2023, the Riders set franchise records with 680 walks and a .355 team on-base percentage. The 680 walks as a team were the most in all of Double-A.
Starting his fourth season with the Rangers organization, Tuntland was the hitting coach for Hickory in 2022 after serving as the hitting coach for the Arizona Complex League Rangers in 2021.
From 2016 to 2018, the Illinois native coached in the collegiate ranks at Oakton CC, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and West Virginia, his alma mater. Tuntland was drafted in the 29th round of the 2013 draft by San Francisco, hitting .227/.345/.338/.683 over his two seasons.
Tyler Wolfe - Hitting Coach
Wolfe will return to the RoughRiders for his second season in Double-A and his third season in the Rangers system.
In 2023, he served as the hitting coach for the ACL Rangers, helping guide an offense that finished with the second-most total bases in the ACL and tied for the second-most home runs. Prior to joining the Rangers, Wolfe served two years as a hitting coordinator at Cressy Sports Performance in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Before that, he coached for two seasons in the St. Louis farm system with the Gulf Coast League Cardinals and spent four seasons as the head coach for Minnesota Blizzard Baseball, a 15U fall league team in Minneapolis/St. Paul. As a player, he was a 39th-round selection by the Astros in 2016 out of Kansas State University, reaching Double-A Corpus Christi.
Kawika Emsley-Pai - Bench Coach
Emsley-Pai returns to the RoughRiders in 2025, where he specializes in working with the Frisco catchers.
In 2024, Riders’ catchers allowed just 101 steals, tied for the fewest among all full-season MiLB teams, while throwing out 26 percent of potential base stealers. In 2023, RoughRiders' catchers had the second-fewest wild pitches and passed balls in the Texas League.
After coaching collegiately from 2019-2021 as the head coach of Centralia College in Washington state, he joined the Rangers organization in 2022 with the Hickory Crawdads. A former catcher, Emsley-Pai played six seasons in the minor leagues for the Diamondbacks (2010) and Pirates (2011-15) systems, making his highest stop at Double-A Altoona in 2014.
Carson Phillips - Bullpen Coach
Phillips marks another new face to the staff, joining the Rangers organization for his primary year after serving as a bullpen coach in the Toronto Blue Jays organization for the last two seasons (2023-2024).
He was with High-A Vancouver in 2024 and Triple-A Buffalo in 2023 after being a graduate assistant with the University of Arizona baseball team in 2022.
Michael Theile - Athletic Trainer
Theile heads to Frisco for his first season as well, spending his fourth year within the Rangers organization.
The Milwaukee, WI native served as the athletic trainer for the Low-A Down East Wood Ducks in 2024 after being with the ACL affiliate in both 2022 and 2023.
After attending both Marquette University and Georgia State (master’s degree), he served as an athletic training fellow at Florida Atlantic University, working with the baseball and cheer teams from June to December 2021.
Brett Platts - Strength and Conditioning Coach
Platts returns to the RoughRiders for his third season in the Rangers organization in 2025 and his second in Frisco.
In his first year, he was the strength and conditioning coach for the Low-A Down East Wood Ducks before spending a season with the Cubs, working in the Dominican Summer League. The Canada native completed his strength and conditioning internship with the University of Iowa athletic department in 2022 and spent four years with the Okotoks Dawgs Baseball Academy from 2019 through 2022. Platts played two seasons at Southeastern Community College in Iowa.