Omegawave: An emerging technology and application in professional baseball pitchers

BACKGROUND: 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 ingame 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: For relief pitchers, there was a weak negative correlation with opponent slugging percentage (SLG) (R_s =-0.30; P=0.015) and a weak positive correlation with strikeouts per nine innings (K/9) (R_s =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. CONCLUSIONS: 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.