One man will make the difference in the AL East next year. It isn’t Derek Jeter, it isn’t Alex Metro Rodriguez, and it isn’t David Ortiz. In fact, it isn’t anyone that plays for the Yankees or the Red Sox. The man I’m talking about is new Baltimore Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone.

Despite the fact that few people outside of baseball know his name, Mazzone could easily be ranked among the upper echelon of coaches in the game. All-time. And he’s never even been a manager.

Serving as Braves pitching coach for the past 15 seasons, Mazzone has cemented himself as the greatest assistant coach of all time by specializing in making good pitchers into great ones. Under his guidance, the Braves’ pitching staffs finished first or second in 12 of the past 14 seasons in the National League. And of course, as a side note, the team itself did win the division the past 15 seasons. In case you hadn’t noticed. (Maybe you were in a coma? I don’t know.)

Alright, anybody will naturally counter that argument by saying “Well, of COURSE Mazzone looked like a genius! His pitching staff had Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine in it! I’ll bet even a rabid wombat could coach those three and win the ERA title!”

To that, first I would say to you, “Where did you think of the phrase ‘rabid wombat,’ because that would make a great band name,” and then I would proceed to point out that Mazzone did not work exclusively with Hall of Famers.

In fact, during his tenure in Atlanta, ten different pitchers managed to get elected to the All-Star team, including such forgettable names as Steve Avery, Mark Wohlers, Denny Neagle, Kevin Millwood, John Burkett, and Mike Remlinger. He even made a respectable closer out of John “Aryan Man” Rocker.

The fact is, when pitchers came to Atlanta under Mazzone, they immediately got better. In fact, in the crazy world of baseball sabermetrics (where ridiculously intelligent people compile impossibly complex formulas to try and figure out ways to measure performance on the baseball field), analyst J.C. Bradbury estimated that having Leo Mazzone as a pitching coach lowers your ERA by somewhere from .55 of a point to .85 of a point. The repercussions of that are huge.

Let’s look at this past year’s Oriole pitching staff. If each of their ERA was knocked down a half a point by the “Mazzone effect” as Bradbury predicted, then Baltimore would have two pitchers in the top 10 in the AL in ERA, and another two in the top 25. That doesn’t even factor in the possibility of A.J. Burnett becoming the potential ace of this young staff and making them even more dangerous.

Alright, maybe I’m a little biased because I’m an O’s fan, but seriously, I am practically wetting myself with excitement. Having watched Baltimore’s pitching staff for the past two years, I know the m.o. for every pitcher on the staff, and they all seem the same; good arm, couple of good pitches, has potential, just needs guidance.

This whole time I had pretty much just been hoping that Orioles GM Mike Flanagan would pull a Billy Beane and trade these over-hyped pitching prospects for some undervalued arms that could at least keep the Orioles in the division race. I had never dreamed that the greatest pitching coach in major league history would magically fall into the Baltimore staff’s collective lap.

Fortunately for the fans at Camden Yards, their new manager Sam Perlozzo grew up with Mazzone in West Virginia (What’s with all the Italian families settling down in West Virginia???) and Mazzone actually served as the best man at Perlozzo’s wedding! Of course, I wondered what it was like getting advice about your wedding night from a pitching coach (“You’re gonna want to utilize all parts of the zone.”) but I was really just happy that my team had the good fortune to have their new manager be so connected.

What made the whole situation even better is that Mazzone spurned George Steinbrenner and a potential astronomical salary as the Yankees’ piching coach to be assistant to his friend, which means: a) He kept his soul intact by not signing with the Yanks, and b) New York’s pitching staff will struggle next year, having poured too much money into an aging Randy Johnson and the newcomer’s luck that seems to hit every new Yankee surely fading away from Shawn Chacon and Aaron Smalls.

I’m dead serious when I say with all confidence that the Orioles have a shot at making the playoffs next season, and it has absolutely nothing to do with their personnel changes on the field. It’s who’ll be methodically rocking back and forth in the dugout (a quirky habit Mazzone is known for) that will create dramatic changes in the AL East.