Part 6/7:
The Inception of the Relief Pitcher Composite (RPC) Metric
To address the inadequacies of traditional metrics, the development of a new measurement—Relief Pitcher Composite (RPC)—aimed to evaluate relievers with more robustness. RPC aggregates various advanced statistics (like FIP, strikeout rates, and more) that take into account different facets of a relief pitcher’s performance, yielding a more comprehensive understanding.
Through RPC, Clase consistently ranks among the top relievers each year since 2021, with his elite talent clearest in his smart mix of pitches and ability to generate weak contact. The RPC stat has proven to be significantly more predictive of a reliever's performance than ERA, aligning more closely with how a pitcher performs across various contexts.