Murray State University Athletics
Staff Directory
- Title:
- Special Assistant to the Pitching Coach
Mark Riggins joins the Murray State baseball staff as special assistant to the pitching coach ahead of the 2026-27 season, bringing more than four decades of professional baseball experience back to his alma mater. A 1979 Murray State graduate and four-year letterman for the Racers, Riggins spent more than 40 years in professional baseball as a pitcher, pitching coach and pitching coordinator with the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Toronto Blue Jays organizations, including three seasons as a Major League pitching coach.
Riggins signed with the Cardinals as a free agent pitcher out of Murray State and spent parts of five seasons in the St. Louis farm system, reaching Triple-A Louisville. He moved into coaching in 1984 as the pitching coach for the Cardinals' rookie-level affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee, and over the next decade served as a pitching coach at every level of the organization from Class A to Triple-A. In 1995, Riggins was named the Major League pitching coach for the Cardinals.
From 1996-2007, Riggins served as the Cardinals' pitching coordinator, overseeing pitching development throughout the entire organization. In that role he hired and evaluated the system's pitching coaches, built individual development plans for every pitcher covering grips, deliveries, the mental game and health, established roles on each affiliate's staff, coordinated daily spring training pitching plans for five clubs, worked with the medical staff on rehab programs and installed the organization's pitching program at its Dominican Republic complex. He also kept a daily log on every pitcher in the system and advised the general manager and Major League pitching coach on staff moves.
Riggins moved to the Cubs in 2008 and spent three seasons as Chicago's pitching coordinator before serving as the club's Major League pitching coach in 2011. He then joined the Reds as pitching coordinator from 2012-15 and was Cincinnati's Major League pitching coach in 2016. Riggins closed his professional career in the Blue Jays organization, serving as pitching coach for High-A Dunedin in 2017 and 2018 and remaining under contract with the club in 2019 before retiring in 2020.
Throughout his career, Riggins built expertise in pitching mechanics and injury prevention. He studied biomechanics at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, the laboratory associated with Dr. James Andrews, under Dr. Glenn Fleisig. While with the Cardinals, Cubs and Reds, he had pitchers' deliveries analyzed at the ASMI lab and by a roving ASMI instructor, and reviewed delivery video of draft prospects for all three organizations to assess injury risk. Over his 40-plus years in the game, Riggins worked alongside 13 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
