20 Best Pitching Machine For Little League (2023 Updated)

We use this with the xtender cage for our two sons who are avid little league baseball players. So far it has held up well. The neighbors all come to hit in the cage as well. We have the machine in a 24ft cage and it pitches the perfect speed for 11yr olds at about #6-7 on the dial.

Our older neighbor plays for our local high school team and loves to hit off this machine as well. He hits at about #8-9. Which means we have more speed than we will ever need. Don’t be fooled by 50mph rating thinking it’s too slow, the closer you put the machine the faster the speed feels.

In a 24-40 ft cage 50mph will feel closer to 90mph. We live in a cold winter climate so it will need to be put away during the winter, but set up is very easy. We purchased a BBQ grill cover to lay over the machine when not in use and it works out perfectly to protect it from the sun and sprinklers.

Buy the yellow heater balls to use with this machine. Synthetic balls disintegrate when going through the wheel and leather are very expensive – but do work well.

Great pitching machine for the price. Bought it to go with the 22′ cage I have (also from Heater), and my boys love it. My 14 year old thought it would be too slow for him, but at a shorter distance, 22′ as opposed to a 60′ mound, it is perfect for him.

Get the 12 ball feeder if yours doesn’t come with, you’ll be glad you did. I recommend this machine for any backyard batting cage.

This pitching machine is exactly as advertised! Works great! No issues at all! It came in its original box and looks and works like it should. My son and his friends absolutely love it!

I have owned a Louisville Slugger Black Flame for two years and it has been very useful pitching machine for Adult and teen hitters. It can’t be beat for the price and it works VERY well after learning the particular skill of using it.

It just keeps working well! Have additional springs on hand and DO NOT fire it with no baseball in place. Older springs are more likely to break if you do. Pitching speed is right around 50 MPH and puts a lot of baseballs through the strike zone during batting practice.

FAR MORE than live pitching BP. Suggestion: Set up two home places, one 5 to 8 feet in front of the other to work on timing changes. The batter should move back and forth between plates, hitting from both plates each time at bat.

Conclusion: GOOD price and it WORKS! This must be one of the best kept secrets in batting practice.

Without a doubt this pitching machine gives you the best bang for your money. It’s very accurate when you place the baseball on it in the same position each time. It does vary slightly depending on how beat up the baseballs are that you are using.

I currently use only brand new Rawling’s yellow dimpled pitching machine balls and they are dead on accurate (within inches) every time. With this pitching machine you definitely get more consistent strike pitches over the coach’s arm throws and a lot more repetitions in the same amount of time.

You can have your batters working on low pitches, inside pitches, outside pitches and basically anywhere in the strike zone to simulate live arm pitches. I have two of these machines and we use one for batting practice and the other for shooting grounders to the infield and flyballs to the outfield.

Very easy to change from straight pitch, to ground balls and then to fly balls. Another great thing about this machine is that you can pitch baseball or softball size balls. So, if you have a son and daughter both play ball you only need this one machine.

I have clocked baseballs on this machine and they reached 58 MPH. Best I got with softballs was 44 MPH. The machine sets up easy and takes down easy and will fit into the trunk of 90% of the cars on the road.

The machine was well packaged in a sturdy box and it took only 10 minutes to set up and be ready for use. The metal is thick and the machine is very sturdy. It is much better made than the UPM 45 Blue machine.

It seems to be very durable and is extremely simple to operate.

I purchased this a few weeks ago in order to work on batting and fielding skills with my 12 y/o son who is playing his second year of little league. A big factor in choosing this over other machines was the ability to go anywhere without being confined to an electric outlet.

The machine is surprisingly consistent and we are utilizing both Heater balls and baseballs. You do lose a little speed and distance when using actually baseballs but that was expected and easily adjusted for.

So far pop fly and pitching settings have been great. Haven’t utilized ground ball settings yet. The key to proper use is being consistent with how you set the arm while loading and maintaining a consistent steady pull each time.

Would recommend this if in the market for a pitching machine and not wanting to spend a fortune.

This is exactly what it says it is. Perfect pitching machine for the smaller golf ball sized balls. My son and I hit wiffle golf balls before every game to get hes eyes on the ball. This machine is perfect for that, indoor or out door.

I live in the Cleveland area so its pretty windy and this pitches through it no problem. I enjoy hitting off it as well. The balls have a true flight to them also, you can really hit them far. As accuracy goes its really like any other pitching machine you have to dial it in and it will occasionally throw some bad ones.

Which I think is fine, you dont get perfect pitches when you step in the box.

I bought this to train my 11-12 year old baseball team. It really makes them keep their eye on the ball! They also think it is so fun. We have only been using it in practice. It definitely works better indoors.

The balls fly all over so I fear I am losing them when we use it outdoors. Can’t wait to see how they hit the “big” baseballs after this small ball training. The only frustrating thing is that it takes a bit of effort to pop the balls in the feeder and after doing so, you have to readjust the machine sometimes so it is on target.

The pitching machine came broken however the staff were great at resolving the issue. The new machine arrived in five days and the grandkids love it.

Personally, I stink at having a consistent soft toss when working with my 8U/10U daughter on hitting. This tool allows me to set it up in front of a net, and get her into a rhythm of hitting quickly and easily.

This gets her more quality reps in less time than me trying to do soft toss. It can also be used for working on grounders if you remove the extension bar from the middle or as a tee if you swap the insert.

It packs up nicely in the included case and can be easily taken to the field for those long tournament days. My only complaint is that it’s a bit top heavy when using the toss configuration, but that’s easily remedied by adding a cheap ankle weight/sandbag/etc around the base.

Also, if you’re going to be moving it a lot, grab some duct tape and run a couple of strips along the side of the release mechanism, which only loosely slides into its slot and has no screws to hold it firm.

If you move it from one place to another, the mechanism will easily slide out and crash to the ground. Thankfully it’s survived a few drops like this before I gave up and gorilla taped it, lol. I’ve used all sorts of balls in this machine during the couple of months I’ve had it, from foam practice baseballs to softballs, tennis balls, etc.

The only one that’s given me any issues are those rubbery weighted practice balls, which sometimes are too sticky against the rails to roll easily or tend to get a bit stuck on the release mechanism.

Overall, it’s a great practice machine that seems to be built fairly well while still being lightweight and easily portable.

Cool design. Nice carry bag to store the equipment. A little finicky if setting up on sloped grass. Not sure if the plastic motor device will last, I have a feeling I will break it when it is packed away.

Bought this to help my younger player with timing. So far it’s been great. Some balls do fall off the track especially balls with raised seams, but only occasionally.

This machine has been perfect for my 9u son. Can throw slower pitches and ramp up for the fast balls. Even worked well in windy conditions. I highly recommend having a batting cage still, he was launching them into neighboring backyards.

Good thing is, light flute balls won’t cause any damage.

The Lite Flite machine is a very well built, like other Juggs machines. The fact that it can’t pitch a real baseball is obviously a limitation, but I knew that when buying. For the price, this machine is very useful.

The balls it pitches are fairly lightweight – they certainly don’t hurt if they hit you but you can still hit them probably 100-150 feet. If you set it up more than 30 feet from the batter, the ball starts to lose velocity making it unrealistic versus a real baseball.

From 30 feet, it’s great. The balls also lose some of their firmness over time. When they do, they come out of the machine a little differently (a little lower). It’s actually helpful so it isn’t grooving the ball right in the same spot every time.

That being said, it’s consistent enough so that he isn’t freaked out about being hit by a ball (it wouldn’t hurt anyway). I think it will prove very useful in teaching my son swing technique, how to hit curving balls, etc.

For the price, it has a lot of utility.

Just wanted to let you know I took my new Combo Pitching Machine out to try it out yesterday. After working with it a bit, setting it up and making adjustments, pitching was right on and with regular 12″ softballs.

It’s much easier to work with than my Jugs two wheel hard ball machine and not as heavy. We then set it up behind home plate to shoot fly balls for outfield practice and to my surprise they were going about 250′.

So far I am more than satisfied with this machine and I thank you for your 100% complete honesty with all my previous.

Perfect for game use,, pitching, or BP. A great quality product from Rawlings, leather feels great, stitching in even and raised nice, which allows for my son to get a great grip on the ball for select pitches duringthrowing sections, as for BP the baseball balls come of the baseball bat real nice and take a good beating and show no problems in durability.

Time will tell how durable they will be but so far so good. I would definitely recommend purchasing these baseballs.

I’ve used Rawlings baseballs for 33 years. Over the years, their quality control seems to have diminished. Upon opening these baseballs I found that there were bumps, dents and softspots on the leather.

It seems to be a common issue these days as I found these issues on the 10U and 12U baseballs as well. They’ll still get the job done regardless of the quality control.

Bought these for my BaseHit Pitching Machine and they work great. My son is 12 and we’ve had these now for 6 moths. No wear on them or the machine. Recommended.

Our company owns two of these machines and if we had more storage space I would definitely buy more! The price is reasonable compared to other machines that offer moving pitches. It is easy to set up and take down and not too heavy.

The balls are soft so younger players can hit without fear and you can adjust the settings to throw curveballs, screwballs, sliders. Simple to adjust back and forth between fastballs and moving pitches.

Totally worth the purchase and a great “at home” machine if you are looking for something to work with your player outside of practice.

I have a 10 and 12 year old that needed extra faster batting practice. I have only tried using real baseballs. It throws them pretty well. Fairly accurate pitching with cheap synthetic leather baseballs that I had laying around.

The balls do scuff quite a bit, but I got them for 25 cents each. I’m able to pitch about 100 balls to the kids without breaking a sweat. I find it better to hand load the balls so they know when they are “coming”.

Hand loading is much quicker rather than waiting 10+ seconds to auto load. I have a local batting cage, you need to have power receptacle nearby. The machine uses about 200 watts. I tried a 18ah battery and inverter, but it only gave about 150 pitches before the battery died.

This machine does pitch fast for an inexperienced adult, which makes it a challenge.

My son was falling behind his team mates as I couldn’t pitch a baseball to him. We did some research and this was a great entry level machine for us. We got it for him when he was 9 and have used it for 4 years.

He has out grown the speed, but it is great to angle up and shoot out fly balls. I also angled it down and we can shoot out grounders. Great machine and well worth the investment.

It’s an OK pitching machine. Easy to put together and adjust though the instructions are vague. Major problem with the auto ball feeder. It works great for the first 3-4 pitches but then you need to manually push the ball down into the machine to get it to feed.

It’s pretty noisy and rattles a lot. Not worth $300.

We bought this same one a few years ago. It worked great for almost 2 seasons of softball. Towards the end it started to spark. Customer service was great and we ordered a part for it. We fixed it, but it wasn’t like it used to be.

It was destroyed in a fire while it was there to be worked on, so we just purchased this new one. Here’s hoping it lasts longer!.

I bought this machine three months ago as we have a large back area and can have live batting practice every day. My 13 year old son has been transitioning from a drop 10 bat to a drop 3. He needed a lot of repetitions and he gets plenty with this machine.

We set up the machine at 39 feet from home plate at 50MPH. Once you learn to set it up and tune it in it throws a large majority of strikes and at that speed and distance is very realistic. Here are a few things to keep in mind: 1.

Use the Jugs Sting Free Balls. These hard plastic dimpled balls are easier on the machine and throw more consistent strikes. I do not recommend this machine with leather balls. Plus the plastic balls are a little more juiced and make hitting more fun.

2. We bought a small net as a backstop to keep unhit balls from getting lost behind home plate. 3. I clean the wheel of the machine and the plastic balls after every two hitting sessions. It helps in the throwing accuracy of the machine.

My son loves it and so do I. He was a good hitter, now he is a helluva hitter. This machine is consistent enough and I have put over 1000 balls through it. We love it!.

I bought this machine Spring of 2015 and held off on giving a review until i really got some good use out of it. First and foremost you MUST use real leather balls!!! Cheap balls will tear and/or have the cover totally ripped off.

Also, you will never get an accurate pitch with cheap “practice” grade balls. You must also make sure the tire has been sanded a bit and has the proper amount of air in the tire. I’ve used this machine for 3 seasons now and have put a couple thousand balls thru it with no let down! My 10 yr.

old son hits 60 – 90 balls prior to every game on top of 150 balls per team practice (used for batting practice as well as pop fly drills). Won’t find a better machine at this price, the only thing you might want to consider is you’ll probably be spending at least $100 a year on new leather balls, otherwise a great purchase!.

Im loving thus. Only batting practice my 8u dtr was getting was during games or if I took her to an expensive cage. It is nearly identical to her league’s machine (smaller wheel). Comes with softball or baseball feeder, and can pitch 0-50mph.

This machine is awesome! I’ve been using it myself (play wood bat 30+ baseball) with Baden “Featherlite restricted flight” balls and it’s incredibly quiet, doesn’t vibrate, thus very consistent pitches in same zone, Can pitch these ball up to 60 mph.

I put the machine about 40′ in front of me and turn the speed knob to 7, roughly 55 mph (approximately 70+ from 60′) and hit at little league fields. I use a quiet inexpensive generator when at the fields and best shots for me travel about 220′ in air.

I’m still able to hit real baseballs roughly 300′ at my ripe age of 55. What can I say, the kid in me will never die? It’s great for practicing the swing and feeling good about squaring balls up and seeing results.

Would be great for all ages.

this net is not good at all. False image – the kids has been shrunk down to make it look big. the net droops as the pipes are flimsy pipes. do not waste your money

As soon as you open the box, the documentation disclaimers start flowing – real baseballs will be inaccurate, and they lay the blame squarely at the feet of non-uniform baseballs. Correctable, of course, by purchasing the yellow Heater balls (one is included).

Beware: Documentation also demonizes pleather balls. Using a brand new set of very new, very uniform, very leather, and very clean baseballs, accuracy still leaves much to be desired. The speed, while diminished by using real baseballs, is a non issue.

For best results, rev it up, use at shorter distances, and feed by hand as a 4-seamer. Observed max drift at max speed, 40ft, 8″ horizontal 10″ vertical, really paints those corners at random. Will issue walks occasionally.

Machine is surprisingly light. The legs, surprisingly heavy. Sturdy, not even a hint of overheating. Bring a tool to properly tighten the vertical adjustment. If you’re in the market for this price point, it’s exactly what you want to hear.

I’m lovin it – on a budget.

Bought this for my grandson thinking I was actually buying a batting cage. The unit is awesome except it’s kinda small. So if you are looking for an all inclusive cage it wi lnot work. The pitching machine has to be set outside and aligned with the window on the netting.

Also, doesn’t come with balls, you must purchase those seperately. The reps with the company can help you with that. Overall, great value for the product!.

Bought this during a sale. Purchased for my little who is getting back into baseball. He was just standing in the box. Taking those K’s. We got him working in this cage and he started swinging that bat and made contact! So proud of him.

Not looking for bombs, but wanted him to not be afraid to just swing. He likes going in there. He has fun so that makes me happy that I made a good purchase.

This is an awesome deal being that the items individually would cost you at least $70 more. The pitching machine was easy to put together and pitches like a dream easy to adjust it up or down. The only draw back to it is there is no speed control you can only buy the balls that are 40 or 60 mph and in the cage you cant set the machine further back to slow the pitches down either other then that I give the machine a 8 out of 10.

The cage you definitely need at least 3 people to set up its pretty big and took us about hour and half to set up its more of a permanent set up not intended to put up and take down. So be prepared to have a spot to leave it.

The cage gets a 9 out of 10 for quality and 6 out of 10 for setting it up. Hope this helps!.

I bought this soft toss machine. It tosses baseball or softball to a batter. It runs off a 12 volt rechargeable battery. I have a 20 year old one I bought brand new. It works perfect after all these years.

I replaced the batter every so often. I had to replace the arm on it after the 12 year. I called jugs for the part. I sent them the picture of my old machine and model # they sent me the arm free of charge.

I own 3 today because I coach and do camps. I have zero issues with any of then except replacing the battery’s. I found a good trick to preserving the battery’s. I bought a trickle charger at harbor freight.

I hooked up this trickle charger to the battery. I drilled a hole for the wire to come out of the machine. I then put a connection on the outside for the charger. I plug in my machine at night when not in use to the trickle charger.

My battery’s last 2 to 3 years and ready to go any time with out over charging my battery’s. I made wooden cases for my machine with foam inside for safe travel. Work horse machine. Love jugs machines.

All there products are quality stuff. I only by jugs products.

I used the product and was very dis-appointed. When I loaded about ten balls after the third was thrown some of them started to come off the toss machine. I had to placed the machine about 4 ft. from the batter so that the ball could get to him.

Also at every throw it needed adjustment. Bottom line it needs a lot of attention in order to make it work. This condition defeated the original reason for buying it; that was to load the machine and receive the twelve soft tosses.

My son don’t even use it because it work with just a few balls. Waist of money, too expensive for the little it does.

I bought this because I moved to a new town and did not know any other ball players. The pitch height is def better for baseball players, a quick fix is to put the machine on a fold out chair or trashcan.

This machine is the ONLY reason I can hit backside now. I use it at least once a week. PS. it goes very well with the JUGS instant net.