Best pitchback nets for backyard baseball

What a pitchback actually does

A pitchback is a frame with a tensioned net in it, angled so a thrown ball comes back to you. That is the whole idea, and it is a better idea than it sounds, because the limiting factor on a kid getting better at baseball is almost never coaching. It is having someone available to throw with. A pitchback is available every day after school, and it does not get bored after fifteen minutes.

What it does not do is replace a hitting net. The two pieces of equipment look similar and solve opposite problems: a hitting net absorbs a batted ball and stops it dead, and a pitchback returns a thrown ball to you at speed. Hitting into a pitchback sends the ball back at a child's face, and throwing into a hitting net means walking over to pick the ball up. If you are not sure which one you need, read hitting net vs pitchback net before you order either — that page exists precisely because this is the most common mix-up in backyard gear.

The other thing a pitchback does is expose a throwing problem honestly. A kid who throws from the elbow, or releases late, or steps across himself, gets an immediate and unsentimental answer: the ball does not come back. Nobody has to say anything. That feedback loop is the real reason this is a good $60 purchase.

How these were ranked

Nobody on this site has swung, thrown into or assembled any of these nets, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we have done is read every live listing, taken only the figures each one actually publishes, and ranked on the five criteria below — the published practice-gear rubric, in weight order.

1. Stability (25%). Does the frame stay where you put it when a 12-year-old throws hard at it? Ground stakes in the box and a heavier steel frame both count here. A net that walks backward after six throws gets abandoned.
2. Setup time (20%). A net that takes forty minutes and two adults to assemble gets built once. A fold-flat frame that goes up in ten minutes gets used.
3. Durability (20%). Frame material and net construction as published. Netting is the part that fails first, usually at the bungee or the grommets, and a printed target wears before the frame does.
4. Value (20%). What the listing gives you for the money, with no credit for a brand name. Two of the cheapest nets here score highest on this one.
5. Portability (15%). Does it fold? Will it live in a garage next to a car, or does it own a corner of the lawn until October?

We deliberately do not score on “rebound quality”, because no maker publishes a figure for it and any number we invented would be fiction. Where a listing omits a dimension, this page says so instead of filling the gap. The full rubric and its weights are published on how we pick youth baseball gear.

Size is the spec that matters, not the brand

If you read one section, read this one. The single biggest determinant of whether a pitchback gets used is whether the kid can hit it. A 2 ft 9 in wide net demands accuracy that most 8-year-olds do not have; a 65 in wide net forgives a throw that sails. Here is the full range on this page, in published dimensions:

Two of the seven do not publish a frame size at all, which is a genuine mark against them and is reflected in their cons. The Franklin All-Angle earns its place on the strike-zone target and the adjustable path; the Champion earns its place on build quality and the fact that rec programs buy it. But if knowing the footprint before it arrives matters to you — and in a small yard it should — buy one of the five that states a number.

Return angle: what the three settings do

Every net here except the small SKLZ PitchBack advertises some form of adjustable angle. The angle changes what the ball does on the way back, and that is the difference between one drill and three.

• Leaned away from you (net face angled up). The ball comes back high — a pop fly. The hardest setting to use in a small yard, because a missed catch lands in the neighbor's hedge.
• Upright. The ball comes straight back at chest height — a line drive. This is the catch-practice setting and the one a kid will use most.
• Leaned toward you (net face angled down). The ball comes back low and skipping — a ground ball. This is the setting that teaches a kid to get his glove in the dirt, which is the hardest habit to build and the one most youth infielders are missing.

The SKLZ Fielding Trainer is the pick for fielding work because its listing names all three settings explicitly rather than saying “adjustable” and leaving you to work it out. That is a small thing that turns into a real difference when a parent is setting up a thirty-minute session and wants a plan. The Franklin Flyback and the Champion both state adjustable return angles without naming the three positions, and the Franklin Switch-Hitter states a three-way throw-and-field trainer on one of its two faces.

Do you need a strike zone on it?

Only if your kid pitches, and only if he is old enough to care where the ball went. A printed or ribboned strike zone turns the net into a target: throw, see where it hit, adjust. For a 10-year-old who has just been handed the ball for the first time, that is genuinely useful and it is the reason the Franklin All-Angle and the GoSports rank where they do.

For a 7-year-old, it is decoration. At that age the drill is “throw it at the net and catch it coming back”, and a target just gives him something else to miss. Buy the biggest net you can instead.

What to buy at 7, 10 and 12

• Age 7 or 8. The biggest, cheapest net that will stay standing: the Franklin Flyback at 65 x 44 in, the Franklin Switch-Hitter at 55 x 36 in, or the GoSports at 5 ft wide if the budget is tight. Skip the narrow frames entirely — at this age the net has to forgive him, not test him.
• Age 9 or 10. The SKLZ Fielding Trainer, for the three named return settings. This is the age at which fielding becomes the thing he is actually behind on, and a grounder setting is worth more than a strike zone. The Franklin Switch-Hitter is the cheaper way to most of the same thing.
• Age 10 to 12, and he pitches. The Franklin All-Angle for the strike-zone target, or the Franklin Switch-Hitter if you want a pitch target and a ball collector on one side and fielding on the other.
• Several kids, or a net that lives outside year-round. The Champion Sports Rebound. It is the institutional build and it is priced accordingly.
• A side yard or a driveway and not much else. The small SKLZ PitchBack, which is 2 ft 9 in wide and fits where nothing else will. Accept that an inaccurate throw will not come back.

Measure the yard first

A pitchback needs throwing distance in front of it and clearance behind it, and both are usually the constraint rather than the net itself. As a working rule, give a 7- or 8-year-old about 25 to 30 feet of throwing room, a 10-year-old 35 to 40, and a 12-year-old 45 or more — and then check what is directly behind the net, because every net on this page will let a hard throw through eventually, and a window is more expensive than any of them.

Those are planning distances for a backyard, not league dimensions. The official mound-to-plate distances by age sit on pitching machine speed by age, which also covers how fast a kid should be seeing the ball at each age.

One more constraint worth checking before you order: where the net lives in November. Only the SKLZ Fielding Trainer advertises a fold-flat design. The rest are frames you either leave up or disassemble, which in practice means they stay up, which in practice means the netting weathers for twelve months a year instead of six.

Before you buy

A pitchback is a cheap purchase that is easy to get wrong, and the ways it goes wrong are predictable. Four checks before you order:

1. Can your kid hit it? Be honest about his accuracy rather than his age. If half his throws to you are off target, buy the widest net on the page. Everything else on a spec sheet is secondary to a ball that comes back.
2. Is it going to be a pitching target or a fielding trainer? If pitching, you want a strike zone. If fielding, you want three return angles. Two of the seven nets here give you one and not the other, and the listings are clear about which.
3. Where does it live? Measure the footprint and then measure the gap beside the car. A net that has to come down every time somebody parks will be in the garage by June.
4. Does the listing actually tell you the size? Two of these do not. That is survivable if you have the space to absorb a surprise and a problem if you do not.

A word on the prices you see here

The prices on the cards above are pulled live and change often — pitchback nets are heavily discounted and then un-discounted, sometimes within a week, which is why this page talks in brackets rather than numbers. As a rough map: the Franklin Switch-Hitter, the GoSports and the small SKLZ sit in the budget bracket, the Franklin All-Angle and the Flyback in the middle, and the SKLZ Fielding Trainer and the Champion at the top of a category that still tops out around a hundred dollars. There is no $400 pitchback and you do not need one. Check the number on the card on the day you buy; the ordering above has moved before and will again.

For where a net fits against everything else a season costs, see what a season of youth baseball costs. For the order to buy backyard gear in — tee first, then balls, then a net — see backyard practice setup.

The two nets most people choose between

The Franklin takes it on value and stability: a wider frame, two usable faces and the lowest price of the seven. The SKLZ takes it on setup, portability and published detail — it is the only net here that advertises a fold-flat design, and the only one that names its three return settings. If you want one net that runs structured fielding drills and then goes in the garage, pay the extra for the SKLZ. If you want the most function per dollar, the Franklin is the answer.