What is the Best Backyard Baseball Strike Zone?
(for Wiffle Ball, Blitzball, etc.)

Finally, someone got it right! This strike zone is a newer one to the market and it seems likely that they learned from reviews all over the internet talking about the height being too high for most of the other strike zones out there.

This strike zone has two adjustable heights, one that is 8 inches off the ground which is good for smaller kids, and one that is 13 inches off the ground which we found to be just right for most adults and taller kids. You'll never find a perfect height to suit all different sizes of people, but this one comes the closest.

Not only does it get the height right, but the EasyCall also has the largest "overhang" of any strike zone we reviewed. The more overhang there is, the easier it is to make the call on a low pitch. And I guess I just figured out why they gave it the name they did. If you don't want to hear your kids arguing over balls and strikes, this is the one to get.

The most distinct feature of this strike zone is the wrapped vinyl. It's the only one we've seen that does this and after using it, we wonder why others don't do the same thing. It looks better than the strike zones that hang on by zip ties or velcro or some other method that can easily break over time. The tightly wrapped vinyl also creates a cool thumping sound whenever a wiffle ball or blitz ball hits the strike zone. It's not loud and obnoxious like with metal or hard plastic. And the vinyl is wrapped around the PVC using weatherproof screws that seem like they will hold things in place for a very long time.

You also have the option to get a 12-inch weatherproof vinyl decal added to the center of the strike zone, which could act as a more focused target for a pitcher. The decal can be anything you want. We're considering getting our most annoying friend's face put on one :).

Even if you don't get a custom decal, you can choose from a wide assortment of colors for both the strike zone and the base to give it a personal touch. Their website even has a cool section where you can experiment with different color combos.

The base is constructed using thicker PVC than most of the others we review below, which helps keep the strike zone from blowing over from a breeze (which cannot be said for several others below). There also is very little of the base that extends in front of the strike zone. Most others have a signifcant amount of base protruding out, but this one smartly keeps the majority of the base behind the strike zone and out of the way.

The EasyCall strike zone is also very easily transported to your friend's house or taken on vacation (it breaks down into two almost completely flat pieces).

Not sure what else to say other than "Thank you, EasyCall." In our humble opinion, they've created the best backyard baseball strike zone we've seen.

This strike zone is one of the larger ones out there with dimensions of 30“ high and 23” wide. The 30-inch height feels right, but the width feels a little too wide considering the ball just needs to touch the outer edge of the zone (just seems like the pitcher has a little too much zone to play with from left to right). But at the end of the day, this is a personal preference. Some players might prefer a larger strike zone and if that’s the case, this one fits the bill.

Ultimately, this is one of our favorite strike zone on the market right now. However, it does have one major flaw in our opinion. Simply put, this strike zone starts too high off the ground. It’s an adjustable strike zone that can start at either 15 inches or 20 inches. They claim the 15-inch height is good for kids, while the 20-inch height is “spot on” for teens and adults. After testing with both heights (and with other strike zones), we respectfully disagree.

Per the 4th bullet point above, low pitches that are actually strikes have almost no chance of being a strike when using either of their available heights (15” or 20”). At least it’s closer with the 15-inch "kid" height, but it’s nowhere near a strike with the way-too-high 20-inch strike zone adult height. It’s missing by a good SEVEN inches.

Per the 5th bullet point above, high pitches that you wouldn't normally considering swinging at can too often drop in for strikes using their 20-inch height setting (since that setting makes the top of the strike zone be 50 inches off the ground).

Color wise, the base/frame only comes in black piping with blue connectors. It looks cool, but more color options would be nice.

This strike zone material itself comes in vinyl or steel. For the vinyl color, you can choose, but only between blue or black. The steel option adds to the overall weight of the product, but does offer the cool “ting” sound when you throw a strike. Keep in mind, some parents and/or neighbors may find this sound annoying to hear over and over coming from the backyard, but most kids definitely will think it’s cool.

The base protrudes pretty far out in front of the strike zone which isn’t a big deal because it’s on the ground, but would be nicer if it didn’t stick out as much. It’s just nicer to only see mostly strike zone, not a bunch of piping sticking out way in front of the strike zone.

The zone itself hangs 7 inches in front of the base’s main legs, which is a good, not great, overhang. In our testing, we had a couple low, fast pitches that we had a little trouble telling whether they hit the strike zone or the base legs.

This is a good product overall, but the height options are simply too high in our opinion. With that said, you could just always use the “kids” height (15 inches off the ground) and it will work pretty well for teens and adults. In the end, it's a clear second place to the EasyCall strike zone above, especially considering the price points.

Coming in at 2 inches shorter than the Strike Zone Pro above, the MLW Strikezone by Homestand is 28” tall by 23” wide and the bottom of the strike zone is 17 inches off the ground. This is still too high off the ground for our liking, but it’s not terrible since the height is shorter (you'll still get lots of low pitches that should be strikes NOT hitting this strike zone, but the 2-inch shorter height helps to mitigate higher pitches that are clear balls from dropping in and hitting the top of this strike zone).

Just to hammer it home because we feel it's very important, during our testing games there were tons of pitches in the lower half of the strike zone that we all agreed should have definitely been strikes but they did not hit the bottom of the MLW Strikezone. In many cases they would miss the strike zone by several inches. Frustrating for pitchers, for sure. The one silver lining is that batters will generally swing at these lower strikes (because the batter see that they are strikes, even though the strike zone behind them wouldn't agree).

It appears that this product can also be purchased on Etsy and they have a deluxe model ($159.99) that lets you choose two colors for pipings and fittings. A basic option with one color for all the parts is available as well.

Like several of the zones we reviewed, the zip ties that connect the strike zone to the piping seem a little unprofessional but do the job.

This zone is a pretty large 31 inches tall by 21.5 inches wide and uses sturdy piping. The base is a little on the small side for such a large zone and therefore can wobble a bit, but the weight helps to keep it stable for the most part.

The strike zone itself stands out in a light blue color and is held on by velcro. It's looks a little on the cheap side but hopefully it will hold up, especially if it's left outside for extended periods of time.

It's a bit on the pricey side but does feel a lot sturdier than the other zones that use very thin PVC. It's not our favorite, but it's a good choice if you feel it's right for you.

This zone is a pretty small 27 inches tall by 21.6 inches wide and uses thinner piping than you'd like to see. The 17" in height is too high, so if you get this one, we'd recommend always keeping it at the lower 12" height.

The strike zone itself looks okay with its black and blue coloring (no other color choices). It's very lightweight which isn't ideal as the slightest wind can knock this thing over. That is why they give you metal hooks (they call them ground nails) to keep it more secure to the ground, but it should use sturdy piping so the hooks aren't necessary.

It's a good price at $49.99 but to get a price that good, it's going to use cheaper material and that is certainly the case here. It's an okay choice if you are on a tight budget, but as always, you get what you pay for. If you can spend a little more for a higher quality product, we recommend you do so in this case.

We didn't really understand what’s going on with this one. The company that sells it doesn’t seem to know if it actually has a “floating” strike zone or not. All but one of the pictures show it with NO overhang at all. But in one of the photos (seen on this page) they seemed to just remove two legs so they can claim it overhangs 8 inches. I guess it does, but it has part of the corner fittings hanging down which is really weird, and just looks bad.

It uses cheap velcro straps to attach the cheap vinyl strike zone to the frame.

Worst of all is the strike zone itself. As we mentioned, it’s cheap vinyl, but the design of it is the most perplexing. It has nine sections blocked off in different colors and we can’t imagine why. I guess if you were practicing and said, “I really want to throw this pitch in section 7” you could do that. But you could also do that with any strike zone by just trying to hit the lower left corner. In other words, the numbered boxes are completely unnecessary and thus, it’s a bad look overall, in our opinion.

The base sticks wya too far out in front of the strike zone for our liking. Again, this isn’t the biggest deal because it’s along the ground, but it just looks bad and as we mentioned previously, the less that sticks out in front of the strike zone, the better.

Much like Strike Zone Pro, the heights are too high. They claim 14.5 inches for kids and 20.5 inches for adults. Yet another company that seems to ignore the fact that the strike zone is setback about three feet from home plate and therefore, balls will drop once they reach the strike zone from where they were as they crossed the plate. Again, if you purchase this one, you’ll likely want to use the lower 14.5 inch height even for adults. 20.5 is the highest we’ve seen and it’s absurdly high in our opinion, unless you're playing with Aaron Judge maybe.

Finally, the frame only comes in orange, which isn’t the best color, especially if it’s the only one you offer.

This zone has a very large base like some of the others on here, which isn't a good thing. It might help a little with support, but any base that sticks out this far in front of the strike zone, we are not a fan of. And for such a large unit, we'd prefer a bigger offset than only six inches.

This strike zone uses velcro instead of zip ties, but it doesn't seem like it will last too long, especially if left outside all the time. Another BIG red flag is that they give you TWO strike zones. This indicates the company doesn't trust their first strike zone to last all that long. Nice gesture, but pretty concerning.

It's price point is okay, but judging by reviews on Amazon, this unit will not hold up over time, so we cannot recommend it.

GoSports actually offers two sizes, separately. A 30x28" that they say is primarily for Blitzball and a much smaller 22x18" version that they say is primarily for Wiffle ball. The problem we see is that most people like to play both Blitzball and Wiffle ball, and nobody's going to buy two completely separate units. And then if you're going to pick, the 22x18" size is just way too small in our opinion for any type of plastic ball (Wiffle, Blitz, whatever). So that leaves the large 30x28" version. We like the 30-inch height, but the 28-inch width is much too wide. The pitcher has too much room to play with width-wise which puts the batter at a serious disadvantage. In our opinion, they would have been better off picking one size somewhere in the middle of the two they offer.

Also, for the large version, the 19-inch height off the ground is, as we discussed in other reviews on this page, WAY too high. So many mid-to-low strikes could land below this large zone and not rightfully be called strikes.

Aside from the size issues, the unit itself isn't very high in quality. The PVC piping is VERY thin compared to others we reviewed, which creates an overall unstable unit that falls or blows over from a gust of wind much easier than one that uses heavier materials.

The velcro straps that help keep the fabric strike zone attached do not seem like they will hold up, especially if left outside for any length of time.

If you're on a tight budget, this one isn't the worst option out there, but we recommend spending more to get something sturdier that will last A LOT longer.

The base on this thing is sort of ridiculously big, while the strike zone itself is very small. We don’t like the overly big strike zones (i.e. 33"x23”) because it’s nice to challenge the pitcher a bit, but this one is just a bit too small for plastic baseballs.

Overall the unit is made of pretty thin piping. It also has the deal-breaking problem of not having an overhang at all. Like the Yak Zone below, we had many instances while we tested it where we simply couldn’t tell if certain low pitches were strikes or not. You'd need a slow-mo camera to truly tell.

If you throw the pitches fast, especially a blitz ball, I’m not sure how long this thing would last. The plexiglass seems rather fragile. It is attached to the frame by small nylon cords which seems a little more professional than zip ties.

At least the price of this unit is the lowest of any of the strike zones we tested, but it’s that low for a reason. It’s just not a high quality product and we are kind of surprised that Dick’s Sporting Goods would put their support behind what is, frankly, a low quality item.

Unfortunately, there is a lot we didn’t like about this one. For starters, the price is too high considering what you get.

The PVC pipe is only ¾” which is very thin and flimsy. It just looks low-quality and that's totally confirmed once you actually see it in person.

Worst of all, the base legs are not set back at all, which makes it hard to tell if a low inside/outside pitch that hits the PVC somewhere was a strike or not. In our testing, we had numerous pitches where we simply couldn’t tell if it was a strike or not because of the lack of an overhang. The guy pitching, the guy batting and other guys standing around all agreed they couldn’t tell where it hit.

The zone material is made from cheap vinyl/plastic and has the Yak Zone logo printed on it. It’s not a bad logo, but we believe most people would prefer a blank strike mat so they can do what they want with it as far as potentially decorating it with stickers and/or logos of their own choosing.

The one thing we did like was the height of the strike zone off the ground. It’s a little too low for adults in our opinion, but we’d rather it be a little too low than too high (as is the case with the Strike Zone Pro’s 20-inch height).

This one had the right idea in terms of design, but unfortunately whoever created it executed it terribly.

The piping is super thin and flimsy, which makes it susceptible to falling apart much easier than it should. Some hard thrown pitches made this thing come apart more than once. That's not good.

The vinyl strike zone mat is extremely thin so we don't believe it would last very long, especially if kept outside for any length of time (which it almost certainly would). Honestly, there seems to have been no concern for strength/durability when this thing was made.

Trying to charge almost 80 bucks for this thing is absolutely ridiculous. Don't even consider this one.

This is the only strike zone that we've seen that essentially catches strikes in its netting, rather than having strikes bounce off of it. Theoretically, this style is the only one that would be truly be 100% accurate because if the ball ends up in the net, it’s a strike. If it doesn’t, it’s a ball. With that said, some strikes that hit the top portion of the net can sometimes fall down and not go into the netting. So this one actually isn't 100% accurate.

Let's say for argument's sake that it was 100% accurate and every strike stayed in the netting. Even if that was the case, it’s simply not as fun that way. It’s so much more rewarding to fire a pitch that thuds off a solid strike zone. Hard to explain why, but we all agreed that it’s just better that way.

Other than that, it feels very cheaply made and is not something we would recommended regardless of its price, but certainly not at $54.