Omegawave: an emerging technology and application in professional baseball pitchers

Wearable technology has become increasingly popular in the recent years. Omegawave is a wearable technology used by multiple professional sports organizations. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if: 1) Omegawave readiness correlates with in-game performance for professional baseball pitchers; 2) Omegawave ready pitchers have better in-game statistics than pitchers who are not Omegawave ready; 3) Omegawave readiness predicts a day when pitchers are most ready to return to the mound.

A prospective double-blinded study was performed from May 26, 2016 to September 10, 2016. Nineteen minor league pitchers (22.2±1.9 years of age; seven left- and 12 right-handed; nine starting and 10 relief pitchers) were analyzed.

For relief pitchers, there was a weak negative correlation with opponent slugging percentage (SLG) (Rs =-0.30; P=0.015) and a weak positive correlation with strikeouts per nine innings (K/9) (Rs =0.30; P=0.016). Starting pitchers who were Omegawave ready did not pitch better (P>0.05) than starting pitchers who were not Omegawave ready. Relief pitchers who were Omegawave ready had lower (P<0.05) earned run average (ERA), SLG, and opponent on base plus slugging percentage (OOPS) than relief pitchers who were not Omegawave ready.

Relief pitchers who were Omegawave ready had lower ERA, SLG, and OOPS than relief pitchers who were not Omegawave ready. This study was unable to identify a day in which pitchers may be most ready to pitch after an appearance.