Kevin Riggs brings more than a decade of minor league coaching experience to the River Riders. Riggs coached in the Colorado Rockies minor league system from 2007-14, including serving as manager of the Tulsa Drillers from 2013-14, before moving to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies organizations. Most recently with the Phillies, Riggs was part of the player development field staff as a minor league hitting coach for the Reading Fightin Phils from 2018-19. Riggs led the Phils' offense to a league-most 141 home runs in his first season as the hitting coach and then built on that success in 2019. Under Riggs' guidance, the 2019 team topped the league in home runs (119), triples (47), walks (503) and OPS (.704), and tied for the lead in slugging percentage (.386). Prior to his coaching career, Riggs was drafted in the 28th round by the Cincinnati Reds in 1990, playing for eight seasons in the minor leagues and one season overseas. Throughout his nine-year professional playing career, Riggs put together a .381 slugging percentage, 270 RBI and 729 hits.
Elizabethton River Riders Coaching Staff
Josue Matos joins the Elizabethton staff as pitching coach after four seasons in the same role within the New York Mets organization. The Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, native was most recently a member of the High-A Brooklyn staff in 2019 when he helped lead the Cyclones to a New York-Penn League championship. He is also a veteran of the Appalachian League, having spent the 2017 and 2018 campaigns with Kingsport. Matos also coached with the 2016 Gulf Coast League Mets, was an assistant pitching coach for his hometown team in the 2015 and 2016 Puerto Rico Winter Leagues and previously served as pitching coach at Interamerican University of Puerto Rico from 2010-13. Matos' playing career consisted of eight seasons of minor league baseball, where he climbed as high as Triple-A, in addition to three years pitching at the independent level and stints across a variety of international leagues, including the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, the Mexican League and the Puerto Rican and Venezuelan Winter Leagues. He was also selected to pitch for Puerto Rico in both the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics as well as the 2008 Americas Baseball Cup. Matos attended Miami Dade College and was a 27th round selection by the Seattle Mariners in the 1996 MLB draft.
Joining the River Riders as hitting coach this season will be Jeremy Owens. A native of nearby Johnson City, Owens arrives in Elizabethton with more than two decades of playing and coaching experience at the professional level. The former outfielder was drafted in the eighth round of the 1998 draft out of MTSU by the San Diego Padres. He played five seasons in that organization, two with the Boston Red Sox and finished his affiliated career with the Tampa Bay Rays organization playing for the Montgomery Biscuits in 2006 and Durham Bulls in 2007. Owens continued his playing career with the independent Southern Maryland Blue Crabs from 2008-14 before moving into the coaching ranks as the team’s manager in 2016. He spent the 2017 campaign with the independent New Jersey Jackals before returning to affiliated ball, coaching with the Low-A Bowling Green Hot Rods for two seasons. Owens was set to serve as an assistant coach for the Port Charlotte Stone Crabs in the Tampa Bay Rays organization in 2020 before the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A successful head coach and a veteran of the summer collegiate circuit, Justin Thomas will be Elizabethton’s player development coach this season. Thomas is currently in his third year at the helm of the Bethany College squad in West Virginia where he has guided the Bison to some of the best seasons in program history, including an appearance in the 2019 Presidents’ Athletic Conference championship game. He previously led Voorhees College in South Carolina for four seasons and was the pitching coach at Penn State University - Greater Alleheny in 2012. Thomas has stayed busy in the summers as well, coaching in the Cal Ripken Collegiate League, Prospect League, New York Collegiate Baseball League, Ohio Valley Collegiate League, Myrtle Beach Collegiate League and Carolina-Virginia Collegiate League.