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.

beware of this... it is not worth the money. there is a reason it is so much cheaper than other similar items- its poor quality and doesn't work properly. i am a coach and i bought this to help my son train while i am away coaching and unable to work with him. however the machine is such junk it is not able to function in the way they advertise it to. the ball feed malfunctions every time. 1st ball catapults out fine, but every time the second ball feeds into the machine the stop doesn't re-engage and 1-3 more balls fall into the machine causing a 2-3 balls to fly out in various directions. In addition, the net that is marketed with this product also does not work the way it is described. Save your money and spend it on private lessons or on better quality equipment. Remember you get what you pay for!

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 machine for beginners, but don't expect a sturdy metal pitching machine. It's serving us well and getting my son really comfortable hitting the ball. One drawback, and this may be user error, is the machine double feeds the plastic practice balls that I wanted him to use for simple catching drill, so we are sticking to hitting. Other than that it's easy to move around and adjust and we have fun.

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 purchased this trainer for my 13 and 10 year old boys for some extra batting practice when I am not around and it does the job. We use whiffle balls which work good, but there are times when the loading mechanism allows for two balls to come out at one time. Also, the ball holder is flimsy and doesn't stay connected to the unit all the time. Overall, it works good but I would have preferred that the price was around $30 to $40 dollars to get maximum value from it.

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.

Bought this for my 10 yr ons son for Christmas! We just took it out of the box to use it bc he has been to cold! We took it out and plugged it up and it threw a few balls then never worked again! I’m very disappointed and would not recommend buying it.

Está excelente para enseñar a un niño a batear, los materiales son frágiles pero si le das un buen uso y cuidado puede tener un excelente equipo.

This is the second one I purchased. The spring broke on the first one after 5 years of use which is acceptable to me given I didn’t do any maintenance on it. I will keep this one greased up a little bit.

Funcionó por 30 minutos, después de este tiempo el motor dejó funcionar. Yo y mi hijo muy descepcionados

Item worked for about five pitches for my son then had a huge noise popping sound and something shot out of the machine now the machine does not work tried to contact customer support for the company that makes the item and they were not interested whatsoever by everywhere. this item is very cheaply made

Ya estoy buscando la forma de hacerlo trabajar con baterías.