Hitting off machines vs. Front toss/Live

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Apr 13, 2015
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Hey coaches, so what is your preference especially early in the season assuming you have access to a machine. Once into the season do you like to hit off machines at all?
 

shaker1

Softball Junkie
Dec 4, 2014
894
18
On a bucket
We do alot of front toss, but to see the speed, the machine makes it alot easier than running down pitchers to throw batting practice. Great tool to have. Especially when your kids get a little older, hard to duplicate 60 without a machine
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
Do both.

If you can only do one do front toss.

People are about to start posting about how detrimental machines are, but the detriment of machines is that they are easy to use incorrectly. Use it correctly and life will be good.
 
Apr 13, 2015
179
28
I agree, front toss/live is the best....but as stated, to see speed, the machine from the 43 ft is a great tool.
 
Sep 17, 2009
1,637
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We use machines for speed.....but there's one other important reason: never have one of your players go into a tryout (say high school, or even a college camp) unequipped to dominate machine pitching. You need to set them up for this success and not be the player unable to time the machine left saying "I hate to hit against the machine"....
 
Oct 11, 2010
8,337
113
Chicago, IL
Along those lines DD will watch machine while other players are hitting, if she is first she will stand to the side and watch a few balls go by. They are all different.

(She will take some dry swings, not sure the correct term)
 
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Sep 29, 2010
1,082
83
Knoxville, TN
Personally not a fan of pitching machines. I would rather throw 30mph from 20ft to simulate the reaction time of 60mph from 43ft. Plus, I can place up, down, left and right. Can’t change machine every pitch. The few times we used one with younger age groups, I would hold ball at the machine with left hand and with a ball in my right do a full arm circle to try to simulate a wind up and bump the ball at the machine with ball in right hand.
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
Pitching machines are not a replacement for front toss or live pitching. They are part of the solution, not THE solution. If I knew for a fact that my players would never see a machine in tb, hs or college practice (or camps) I would probably never use them.

Here is my standard pitching machine post:

First of all, have a simple goal. With the machine, most machines and operators are capable of this goal: throw balls toward the middle of the zone. Don't worry, they won't all go to the dead middle of the zone. The pitches will vary in location. Make your goal to work on squaring up pitches in the zone. Don't get fancy or you will regret it.

Next, don’t just have whoever shows up feed the machine. The person needs to OPERATE the machine, not just put balls in the chute. It has to be someone who knows how the machine works and knows how to adjust it up, down, in, out. Speed up, speed down. Someone smart enough to figure out when something is wrong with the way the hitters look. Someone who has the authority to say, hold on here, we aren’t doing this anymore until we figure out the problem.

Whoever is feeding the machine, operating the machine, absolutely HAS to feed consistently. I prefer the method described above with a Jugs machine. I have a Sports Attack 3 wheel machine and I think that is a much better machine and I also think that it's very hard to windmill feed it. I raise my arm slowly and I lower it pretty slowly and try and get it to the wheels as cleanly as possible. If the ball bounces around going into the wheels, bounces it is NO BUENO and hitters will struggle. The ball bouncing will screw up timing and sometimes impart weird spin on the ball.

Next: How you set up the machine is crazy important. Figure out where the release point of a real pitcher is and wherever the ball comes out of the machine is where the machine goes. Outside in open areas, if you aren’t careful, you end up with balls shot across the plate at wierd, unrealistic angles. (Whenever possible, I like to use it on a field with home plate and a pitching plate so the machine and the hitters are in the right spot.) A machine throwing balls at Weidler angles, kitty corner across the plate can be a recipe for disaster.

If the machine isn't level it will do crazy stuff. Check that all the legs are the same length. The legs will burrow into the ground sometimes as the machine sits there running. The machine ends up not being level. That may make pitches unhittable for all but advanced hitters.

The machine will move. See above. The feeder/operator has to pay attention and keep adjusting it. Try to keep it throwing to the middle of the plate. The height setting will walk. Adjust it. The inside/outside will walk. Adjust it. The operator has to constantly stay on top of it.

Your machine operator should know they are not in a hurry. Give the hitter a chance to recover in between pitches. Don’t rush the hitter so much they aren’t taking good swings. Don’t hit so many balls in a row that the hitter gets fatigued and mechanics break down. It isn’t a race to the bottom of the ball bucket, it is a chance for hitters to square up a good pitch with a good swing and hit it hard.

Next, unless you REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, do NOT turn the machine up to 70 so "the pitching they see on game day will look slow and easy to hit". I have heard and seen this garbage too many times by coaches that don’t know what they are doing. This is how mechanics are broken. As in destroyed. This is where machines get a bad rap. Vary the speed. If you can set the speed within a 10 mph window of most of the pitching that you see most games you can make great strides in hitting the pitching you see most of the time. (Which is what you want right???)

As a guideline, ask yourself 3 things: is this machine set to the speed my players see most of the time? Is the ball trajectory similar to what the trajectory of the pitchers we hit against most of the time? Do the hitters look out of sorts? If the hitters struggle, is it too fast or is the feeder inconsistent? DONT JUST KEEP DOING IT IF THE HITTERS DON’T LOOK RIGHT. The goal of using a machine is to learn to crush pitches, in the hitting zone, that are as realistic and similar to live pitching as possible.

Pitching machines are worthless unless you use them regularly. As a training aid they have to learn to use it before it helps. If you use it wrong it can cause real damage.
 
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