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UCLA pitcher James Kaprielian throws during the eighth inning of an NCAA college baseball tournament super regional game against UCLA , Friday, June 7, 2013, in Fullerton, Calif. UCLA won 5-3 to take game one in the best-of-three series. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)

AL East on verge of Arm Recharge

The American League East was, for years, a bastion of charged-up, rear-back-and-slam, grunting offenses.

The Yankees and Red Sox, of course, muscled up in their own very similar ways, locked in a constant armsā€™ race (but for bats). Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi gripped the bat so hard it turned to sawdust, and Trot Nixon, Jason Varitek, Manny and Ortiz did a pitch-perfect impression of a group of power bats from the ā€˜70s. You couldā€™ve spanked mutton chops on any of them, and weā€™d be none the wiser.

Even the Blue Jays of that era were peppered with grizzled sluggers, Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green tapping harsh liners off the filthy Sky Dome carpet and straight into the window of that bizarre center field hotel.

It would be hard to call the AL East of the past decade plus a ā€œyouth-infusedā€ division. And it would certainly be hard to claim thereā€™s been an emphasis on young pitching.

The Rays shocked the baseball world in 2008 partially because of Matt Garza and the late addition of David Price. ā€œWhat are these things?ā€ hitters muttered. ā€œThese pitchers arenā€™t 35 and throwing lefty slop. Thatā€™s not Paul Byrd.ā€

While that Cinderella season didnā€™t bring about wholesale divisional change (after all, the Blue Jays and their roving mashers still exist), nowā€™s the time for a revolution. Because each AL East team has been blessed with a young, electric arm, with the chance to impact divisional races for the next six or seven years.

The next generation was in display in the Bronx on Saturday, when Rays gunslinger Blake Snell took the shuttle from Durham, and hopped on the mound for his first big league start. Snell simultaneously looked 23 (jittery), 27 (poised and dominant), and 16 (lack of facial hair). Essentially, the reports on Snell are accurate. His bender is absolutely devastating, straight up and down, eye-level to a called strike. The fastball is 95 and he can spot it, and the sliderā€™s got tilt. It looks exactly like something Curtis Granderson would whiff over. Heā€™s the Raysā€™ next great hope. Heā€™ll be here a while.

But the boys in the Bronx have a 22-year-old of their own who appears to be on a Snell-like track. First round pick, stuff ticks up once he hits the minors, he moves steadily through each level until heā€™s ready for the big time. Sound familiar? James Kaprielian hopes he ends up with a similar ending (or, beginning, rather). Something about the wunderkind just feels like heā€™s the same sort of poised, swaggering youngster as Snell. And thereā€™s no reason to forget about Luis Severino, either. The Yanks very well might have two of these mainstays.

Itā€™s true across the division. Each team has a piece that looks like they may turn out to be the piece. Lurking in the depth of Bostonā€™s minors is a lanky wizard named Anderson Espinoza, just 18 years old and blessed with the type of hook thatā€™s sure to stupefy at every level. If Dylan Bundy can ever build his arm strength back up to the level he was at before the injury bug bit in 2012, he could be the strong, country ace the Orioles have been missing. Kevin Gausman could be, too. They wonā€™t be, because the Orioles canā€™t develop worth a damn, but thatā€™s not the point. Technically, I should be writing about Arrieta here. But I digress.

Thereā€™s one more ace-in-the-making lurking to the North, and thatā€™s Marcus Stroman. Heā€™s the prototype. Iā€™m not saying heā€™s the best pitcher in baseball by any means, but in terms of changing the makeup of a franchise, and changing the face of his team while heā€™s on the mound, itā€™s Stroman over everybody for me right now. Confidence is at a maximum whenever he’s dealing in rhythm. Rock back, cock, fire, repeat. Smooth and seamless. His attitude is contagious, and Snell and Kaprielian truly feel like theyā€™re following in his footsteps.

They might all get 5 chances per season to face off against each other for the better part of a generation. Talk about a revolution.

Might as well leave the bats in the dugout this decade.