Cubs name Riggins pitching coach
ORLANDO, Fla. -- For Mark Riggins, it's been a long time between big-league jobs.
“Yeah, 15 years I guess it's been,” Riggins said Monday after the Cubs named him their major-league pitching coach.
Riggins, who turns 54 next month, served the last three years as the Cubs' minor-league pitching coordinator. He worked in that capacity for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1996-2007.
His only big-league experience came in 1995, when he worked as the Cardinals' pitching coach.
“I'm very excited,” he said. “It's an honor to be the pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs.”
Riggins replaces Larry Rothschild, who left the Cubs last month after nine years to become the pitching coach of the New York Yankees.
General manager Jim Hendry looked solely internally for his new man. Riggins won out over bullpen coach Lester Strode and minor-league pitching coaches Mike Mason and Dennis Lewallyn, who will take Riggins' old job after working as the pitching coach at the Cubs' Class AA Tennessee farm club.
“It's a credit to how our system has come along,” Hendry said of the Riggins hiring. “We certainly didn't feel the need to interview anybody from the outside. We have four people in house that are major-league pitching-coach caliber, starting from Dennis Lewallyn in Double-A who has got a long history of being outstanding.
“Certainly, we give him a lot of credit the last couple years the way the pitching has come through there and has developed, even guys you've now seen in the big leagues.”
In his previous job, Riggins worked with major-league and minor-league pitchers in spring training and traveled from club to club in the minors each season.
Along the way, he has worked with youngsters such as Andrew Cashner, who made his major-league debut this season and became a mainstay in the bullpen.
Being a pitching coach these days means being part mechanic and part psychologist.
“It's a little bit of everything,” Riggins said. “I started coaching in 1984, as a pitching coach in Johnson City, Tenn. Mechanics was a big thing back then. In the past, I would say 10 years, it's become a lot of mental work.
“You have to have some qualities in the mental field because that's what the game's calling for a lot now. These guys are a little different as far as their makeups and confidence levels they have. They need to be patted on the back a little bit more from when I started as a pitching coach.”
Riggins, who thanked all the pitching coaches in the minor leagues, said he hopes to talk with each pitcher on the big-league staff over the next two or three weeks.