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. Read more
Not very user friendly. Not well built, very flimsy and can be broken very easily. Upon receiving the item, assembly was fairly easy, but I could tell that if I wasn’t careful this item would break. The plastic ball slide broke, when adjusting the tension the screw came completely off and uf that happens you have to disassemble the entire machine to get one screw back in place. Not worth $80 plus. I am disappointed with sklz. I gave several of their products and will not be purchasing their products ever again Read more
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. Read more
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. Read more
I don't believe the item I received was new, as advertised, so this should be taken with that in mind. The item is not as sturdy as I had hoped, causing me to wonder how long it will last. The small lever that is supposed to allow only one ball to get through at a time did not work very well. It is improved with some minor home modification (I bent the small lever upward so that a second ball cannot so easily pass it). Despite that, it looks like it will generally do what is says it will do, and hopefully will provide my 8 y.o. with a means for practicing when I can't be there to be the soft toss machine. Read more
Not functional as described for real baseballs. The ball impacts the feeder chute at any angle and strength useful for soft toss unless you are 4 ft tall. Frustrating waste of time and money for adult wanting to use real baseballs. And much more cheaply made, weak and flimsy than you get the impression from the ad pics and description Read more
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. Read more
