u/ASunnyMoo

I’ve spent the last few months buying, testing, and sometimes returning a few pitching machines, and I figured I’d share the experience because outside of the hack attack jr, I struggled to find reviews on these other models. For background, I have a son entering high school after next year who needs high velocity and a daughter playing D1 softball who needs to work on her mechanics this summer. Because I have a small yard, I am hauling these things to local fields using portable power, so portability was a huge factor for me.

I started out trying to find one machine for both softaball and baseball and landed on the Spinball Wizard 2-wheel. On paper, it was great because it is lightweight, throws 95 mph, and handles both baseball and softball. While it is built well, it just did not work for us. The ball joint adjustment was a pain to line up since every time I moved it left or right, the pitch angle seemed to shift, making it take forever to dial in. Once it was set, the consistency was not there and the ball tended to float around the zone. But the real deal breaker was the visibility. With the two-wheel setup, my kids found it nearly impossible to time the release. This was something I had read about before, but I didn't account for how much of a problem this was going to be for my kids.

That led me to the Hack Attack Junior. I tried to be clever with the budget here because a baseball-to-softball conversion kit is over $900, but a softball-to-baseball kit is only $200. I bought the softball machine and the conversion kit, and for softball, this machine is excellent. It is accurate, the visibility is great, and the micro-adjustments make it easy to dial in pitches. However, the baseball conversion was a letdown. Even though it is advertised at 70+ mph, I could only get it into the low-to-mid 60s. It was not as accurate as it was with softballs, which I assume is related to the wheel size (even after adjusting positions for baseball). I worked with their customer service, who were awesome, and installed a custom board they sent to boost the motors, but it still did not hit the speeds I needed and made the pitch guides unusable. I eventually gave up on the one machine idea and kept it strictly for softball.

For my son’s high school prep, I decided to roll the dice again and give the JUGS Mini-3 a shot since it is rated for 80 mph. Honestly, this is the most accurate machine I have used. I think the rubber tires have a much better grip than the plastic wheels on the other two. The visibility is actually even better than the Hack Attack because of the long chute and the black contrast. It is also way easier to use for fly balls because you can just open up the horizontal movement and spray the ball anywhere. The downside is the weight. It is about 20 pounds heavier than the Junior and does not have built-in wheels, so it is a bit more work to move than the other machines.

The biggest interface difference is that the Hack Attack uses a 1-10 motor dial guide to create pitches, while the JUGS just lets you select the pitch type and then dial in the speed. I personally love the JUGS setup, but if you are a tinkerer who wants to fine-tune a very specific off-speed pitch, the Hack Attack might give you more manual control.

In the end, I am sticking with the JUGS for baseball and the Hack Attack for softball. I imagine the JUGS softball version is great too, but I'm done blowing cash on this. If you are looking for one machine for both, my advice is to proceed with caution because those conversion kits sound great on the website but did not really work out for us. Hope this saves someone some time and a few returns.