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

This is a great little unit for the price. Not made to last the test of time, but should make it through a season or two. Entirely made of plastic, (including the internal parts and mechanisms,) so eventually one of these pieces will break and it will need to be trashed. The unit needs to be plugged in, but does have a battery section to receive a battery(s) (NOT INCLUDED) for portable use. No idea how long the unit will last with batteries...yet. I've had the unit for almost a month and my son has been hitting 100 balls per session every day...so it is holding up well with the use. All in all, this is a good $50 soft toss machine that will serve any level of player for at least a season or two.

bought this in Dec but waited until Grandson's birthday a few weeks ago to give this to him. We set it up last weekend and it worked for about 10 times tossing balls and then the plastic tunnel came apart, snapped it back, then balls get stuck, then tightened know ONE slight turn and screw came off and tried for hours to put back on. WORTHLESS. I need to return this for a refund - only used the one time

I bought this as a machine to help me do some stress relief in the backyard. It turned in to me and my son hitting balls for hours on end. This machine works great and he only reason I gave it 4 stars out of 5 is the screw on balance legs came apart after a short while but it’s nothing some gorilla glue can’t remedy. Sometimes the balls don’t pop right but it adds to the batters skills to take one inside or reach over the plate. I haven’t played baseball in forever and hitting again rejuvenated my love of the game.

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.

Missing parts and broken parts and didn’t realize until now (5 months later). It was a Christmas gift that we didn’t open until now and now can’t return or replace. Don’t buy this item. $89 down the toilet

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.

I would put this on my DO NOT BUY list. Immediately noticed on our first try, the ball feeder doesn't work very well. It will often let more then one ball into the catapult, which in turn just tosses them both wildly or jams if using league balls. Tried with wiffle (Plastic Balls with holes) balls, those will get caught on the little stopper arm in the holes of the ball and jam the system. Then finally tried with SKLZ training balls... Worked a little better, but not what I expected. When machine does work, there was no consistency. Balls would be at different heights and distances each time (Not always a bad thing, but when the batter has to move to reach a ball, thats no good). MUST be on level ground or feeder does not work well or at all. For simple training, I would take a look at the small/mini training ball machines. Guess there is not real substitute for soft toss.

I bought the machine thinking it would be good for my 15yo and my 5yo to work on their batting. Well it does and doesn't. The accuracy is sporadic distance thrown wise otherwise forward and back it is always on target. My 15yo is 6'4'' and with this at it's highest setting it won't throw into his strike zone we had to put it on a table in the yard. Now my 5yo this works perfect for it's right in his zone and could go a little higher so I'd say up to probably a 10yo can benefit from this otherwise spend the money get a real machine. This throws real balls is what we've been using about 5ft from the machine total but the highest point being about 2-3ft away. Cheap plastic as well we already broke the front leg adjustment on the unit. Would I buy another? Yes if I have more young kids otherwise no.