SKLZ 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 pitch2. Use Skilz black and yellow baseballs to create a faster pitch3. 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.

broke after the first day maybe 50 balls. They were also all normal baseballs. The arm that shoots the balls up broke because the spring is not good. Every like 5 balls I would put in I would only hit one because after on ball when into the arm the others ones also fell in. Bad design and cheap plastic for all the parts. DO NOT BUY.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:Throws tennis balls very well, struggle to throw real baseballs more than about 10 feet

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.

the machine is great if you have patience. the pitching is a bit erratic and I feel you need to weigh the machine down so the motor doesn't change the path of the ball. the machine works amazing with the practice golf balls with holes in them.I use this machine with the thin practice power stick and light metal thin bat (slz sells them too)goes a long way to help hand eye coordination.if you can use a baseball donut around the top and the practice golf balls for some added success and life to the machine.sklz if you are checking these reviews weigh down the base.

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.