Pitching Machine | Improve Your Swing | Ideal for Baseball & Softball Drills | Develops Hitting Power and Fielding Skills | Portable & Easy to Use

Outstanding product, and the best for multiple uses: I lay it flat for soft-toss with baseball in the cage. It is fantastic. I then tilt it slightly forward for use with wiffle balls with the spring fully tightened. They last about a year with VERY heavy use, and I am now on my third. PRO-TIPS: 1. put bricks underneath the legs and bricks on top of the legs to hold it in place to shoot a faster wiffle ball pitch 2. Use Skilz black and yellow baseballs to create a faster pitch 3. buy a Christmas light extension cord with a foot switch to allow for solo batting practice. The pitches go to 24 feet, and you can elevate the machine to get a couple more feet out of that. 4. If you want an even faster pitch you can insert a screw-driver into the mechanism and push the spring back even further (securing it there is a trick) to make the force even greater - this will likely put more strain on the motor. 5. use the ball holders from your old machine or purchase another for $30 to make it an awesome 15-pitch pitching machine. Bringing it up to 22 still works, but you need a stick to support the weight when you lean if forward. SUGGESTIONS FOR SKLZ: please, please make a softball version of this for use with the SKLZ impact limited flight, black-and-yellow softballs. Try including three impact baseballs with this product to demonstrate a possible use and increase sales of your balls. There needs to be an ability to tilt the machine forward more, and this requires being able to tilt the ball holder back to give clearance for the pitches. A version on a tripod for added weight would be great for hitting practice. A plastic cage sold separately to go around the front of the product would possibly help for baseball soft-toss. This is such an awesome product at a reasonable price, I do not see why you don't make more variations on this.

UPDATE: I posted the review below on the SKLZ website, or at least I tried. They told me the review was "moderated", which meant deleted! They did not try to resolve the problem at all ... just deleted my review entirely. I won't be buying anymore SKLZ products. We got this for Christmas 2015 and we're already on our third unit trying to get one that works. Luckily Amazon has been good about the returns, but I'm embarrassed to return the third one. Issue 1: When we put in the batteries, the conveyor gear that releases the balls came on even though the switch is in the off position. We could not turn that part off. Only the spinning wheels would come on with the switch. This caused us to have to take the batteries out every time we were going to be done using it. Unacceptable, especially because the batteries require a small screw driver and are very difficult to put in. So we sent this back. Issue 2: This unit did not have the "always on" feature but instead had a wobbly wheel and was very inconsistent on the pitches. If I hadn't had the first unit which was very consistent on pitching, I might have thought this was just how it was supposed to be. Reluctant to return a second unit, I took this one apart. I discovered that two tiny screws that attach the motor to a plastic plate were not tightened. I could see that they were loose, but I couldn't access them to tighten them. This was definitely the source of the wobbly wheel because I could see the difference by looking at the good wheel. Therefore, had to send this one back too. Issue 3: Just got our third unit, and guess what? Same issue as our first unit - the batteries turn on the conveyor gear even in the off position. Uggghhhh! This was a Christmas present and my son really wants to keep it. What do I do?

It is great for what it is: hand-eye coordination training, which may translate to better batting practice. It is not a substitute for a pitching machine or batting cages, so if you are trying to replicate that, you may be disappointed. I like that you can use this indoors. The pitches are extremely variable, which is great for training. No way this thing can pitch from 30 feet away, maybe 20 feet at best. I gave it 4 stars because it is extremely loud.

First and foremost, you have to accept that this is NOT a pitching machine. It's a "soft toss machine". Its purpose is to lob a baseball up into the air just high enough that you can hit it with your bat or catch it and throw to someone else. Once you accept it as such, it does that job quite well. We use ours with batteries (an AC adapter is provided, should you have power nearby) and the trajectory does not change when the batteries run low -- there is just a longer break between pitches. I found two drawbacks of the machine. #1 is that it only holds 8 (or so) baseballs, so someone needs to be on hand to keep it loaded. That's not much of a problem because of #2. #2 is that the machine uses gravity to keep the balls ready to load into the "tossing ring". The baseballs sometimes get stuck and don't load properly. This also means someone has to be on hand to keep things moving. The biggest benefits are #1 cost, and #2 the use of real baseballs. You don't have to buy special baseballs for the machine. I picked up a bucket of baseballs and softballs on craigslist, and away we went. In case you wonder, no, the softballs don't fit. Too bad. This has proved to be a ton of fun with the kids (which is safer than pitching for Daddy AND the kids). Just be sure to wear batting gloves or you'll get blisters from all the batting you can do.

This is a great training machine. I have been using it for last couple of days, for indoor cricket batting practice. Some people complain that the pitching is not consistent; but that is what I need for my practice. I need the balls to be pitched at different lines and lengths, so that I can improve my eye-hand-leg coordination. Also, the difference in the line & length is minimal. It does not deliver any WIDE, BEAMER or DEAD balls. The speed of the deliveries change little bit, but that also works perfect for my practice. To adjust the height, I stack two light weight ottomans on a table and an additional rubber pad to get the proper angle for the delivery. I have used it only with the AC adapter, don't know how it performs with the battery. Update: After few days' use, one of the wheels stopped. As another review said, a screw came off and got stuck on the wheel. Finally I returned it. Reducing 2 *s because of poor build quality.

We have several of these and we love using them. We have used them now for the second season and they have held up well. I use them for my own training, as well as with my 4 and 5 year old daughter. I am still stumped by the bad reviews, and I am wondering if it is bad luck or people just don't like doing the small by training (in which case you may like the SKLZ Lightning Strike Pitching Machine). Bottom line, it shoots small balls relatively consistently over 20-30 feet at a decent speed when you give it proper power and battery charge. By relatively, it is good in that the balls will shoot in the general area, but with will move around. For me, that is fantastic is I have to adapt and makes it more valuable. For my daughter who was 4 when first using it and is now five, it can be frustrating, but has been a valuable tool for her to learn about variability and focus. I purchased more than one of these as I figured alternating them would get more more balls and longer battery life, and I was one hundred percent right. Now we use one, then the other, then go get the balls. The little bit of rest helps a lot with the battery life, and it also makes taking turns and getting a lot of reps much easier. When I did have an issue - one of them stopped working on battery after I used AC power, SKLZ sent a replacement within a week and had good customer service. Note - I really recommend you get the skinny light (SKLZ Lightning Rod) and heavy bats (Power Stick) as part of training. The Bolt Shagger is also a great product.

Lots of plastic here. One foul off of this thing and it won't last. The housing is all plastic. The "catapult" is plastic. The front foot is plastic. Also note: the description says that it's good for softball practice, but this only fits baseball size balls. I ended up returning it for this reason but likely would have sent it back if my use was for baseball only.

I purchased this as a Christmas gift for my son, and he was extremely excited when he opened it—only to find that it didn’t work. Later, we tried again and it randomly decided to work. Fast forward to the day after Christmas: my son was eager to use it again and break in his new baseball bat, but unfortunately, it stopped working once more. This has been incredibly disappointing, especially for a brand-new product meant to be a Christmas gift.