PITTSBURGH – Diamond Kinetics is happy to introduce five of the most original and innovative minds in baseball and softball as the initial members of the Diamond Kinetics Hitting Advisory Council.

Coming this spring, each member of the council will be providing in-depth instructional content in conjunction with Diamond Kinetics, relative to their area of expertise.

From swing drills, to coaching philosophies, to training & endurance methods, all areas that lead to maximizing both a player’s and coach’s overall improvement and potential will be examined.

Let’s meet the council.

Bobby Tewksbary

Bobby Tewksbary is a professional hitting instructor from Nashua, New Hampshire and the co-founder of AB Athletic Development, also located in Nashua.

Bobby and his team at AB Athletic Development have turned what was initially a part-time passion project into a full-time career. With a growing list of clients from all parts of the country, a 7,000 square foot facility and a dedicated following of Major League hitters, Bobby’s goal is to help educate hitters and coaches about the swing by means of such cutting-edge analytical tools such as SwingTracker, HitTrax and Axon.

He shares his hitting wisdom with some of the top coaches, instructors and players on his websites TewksHitting.com and HittingDaily.com.

“We have entered a new era in baseball and softball with technology creating never-before-possible opportunities for player development. While technology like SwingTracker is still new to most, it will soon be very normal for hitters to be tracking their swings and understanding how to make improvements! 

Diamond Kinetics is a company I’m extremely excited to be working with because of what they are offering for hitters. The swing is one of the more complicated movements in all of sport. The team at Diamond Kinetics offers an unique blend of knowledge, tech know-how and a caring vision toward growing the game.

Together, we aim to drive hitting performance forward by using real data to help hitters reach their goals.”

Chas Pippitt

Chas Pippitt is the founder of Baseball Rebellion and Softball Rebellion, an in person and online instruction company with clients and product sales in all 50 states and five continents.

Chas and his team have worked with hitters of all ages in both baseball and softball for over 10 years and have executed over 40,000 lessons in person and online during that time.

The Baseball and Softball Rebellion hitting system is known for producing greatly enhanced turn speed and power within hitters.  Many of BR/SR’s hitters are on the “HitTrax Leaderboard” for maximum distance and exit speed.

“My philosophy on hitting is simple: The greatest gift a hitting coach can give a hitter is time.  Time is ‘given’ by the instructor in the form of a late and sudden acceleration of the barrel by the hitter.  

The longer a hitter can wait to accelerate the barrel, the more information a hitter has about pitch type, location, and velocity.  This leads to better adjustability and contact rates as well as generating more bat speed and force over a shorter distance and time.

The movement improvement drills and movement specific products have allowed us to reach a great number of hitters all over the world and this partnership with Diamond Kinetics allows us to reach even more and provide our program with even more empirical proof of it’s validity.  

I am ecstatic to join the team at Diamond Kinetics and I can’t wait to use our proprietary methodology at Baseball Rebellion and Softball Rebellion to improve the metrics of SwingTracker users all over the world.“

Jim Rickon

Jim Rickon is currently the Hitting Coordinator for the 2016 American League Champion Cleveland Indians. Jim began professional coaching career in 2002 with the Cleveland Indians after playing four seasons of minor league baseball and has remained with the team for the better part of 14 years.

Rickon specialized in player development and was a hitting coach for the first 12 years of his tenure with the Indians before assuming his current role of hitting coordinator in 2012.

“Diamond Kinetics has given me a chance to work with and learn from some of the most innovative and passionate minds in the baseball community. The opportunity to partner up with this group is special in the sense that they have the same exact goals in mind as I do, and that is to simply help make this great game of baseball easier to teach, learn and play.

My overall teaching mission is to help make the game of baseball easier and more fun for the players to play. The philosophy I use to implement this idea is to simplify the extremely complex so that the players can learn and understand from their experiences, coaches and each other. Using resources such as analytics, video and imagery, helps to convey a message to the players that will ultimately help them improve their game.”

Kevin Poppe

Kevin is the Head Sports Performance Specialist at Dynamic Sports Training, a sports performance and athletic development company based in Houston, Texas with the goal of challenging and maximizing every athlete’s genetic potential.

He has trained some of America’s top athletes including MLB and MiLB players, NFL athletes, and high school and college All-Americans. Kevin also played and coached baseball at the collegiate level

“The Dynamic Sports Training team is excited about joining the Diamond Kinetics family. We’ll be providing players with customized athletic development programming to produce off-the-field improvements that will translate to on-the-field results.”

Alex Hugo 

Alex Hugo is a three-time All-SEC selection, two-time member of the NFCA All-America teams and current member the Akron Racers, the oldest existing team in the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) league. Hugo doubles as an instructor at the newly formed Softball Rebellion – a branch of the highly successful Baseball Rebellion

While starting all 65 games of her senior season, Hugo led the Georgia Bulldogs to their first Women’s College World Series appearance since 2010. She also finished second in school history with 56 career home runs.

In 2014, Hugo led the SEC – and the entire nation – in home runs with 25. The following year, 2015, Hugo finished top-15 in the country in RBI (73), sacrifice flies (7), RBI per game (1.24), slugging percentage (.898) and home runs (22).

“I’m so excited and thankful for the opportunity to become apart of Diamond Kinetics. I believe what we can do together for the good of the game is unbelievable; and I’m looking forward to helping girls of all ages better themselves through this awesome program”