Seen above, the countdown drill is used to teach a hitter to be quick to the ball as well as be able to adjust to different timings. The thought behind this drill is if a hitter is able to square a ball up with a very short amount of reaction time, they will be able to adjust to different pitches better. The problem with this drill is that it doesn't allow for a realistic pitch angle. With the coach or instructor dropping the ball from straight above, it doesn’t allow the hitter to adjust to the plane of the pitch.

A drill that you could implement instead of the countdown drill is the Rebel's Rack Timing Drills. This allows a hitter to time their turn to certain pitches as well as giving them a realistic pitch plane to see.