While their Highway 10 rivals enjoyed success in the 2013 Western Major Baseball League season as the Melville Millionaires lifted the title in glory at the end of last summer, the Yorkton Cardinals endured another season of losing baseball as the ballclub once again failed to make the playoffs.
In fact the Cardinals have failed to make the playoffs for five straight seasons, a streak that is hard to believe is a reality based on the fact that in recent seasons only the last place team in the division misses out on postseason play. Meaning the Cardinals have spent a lot of time in the East Division cellar, understandable considering the Regina Red Sox and Melville's recent dominance in the league.
Still a 16-30 record and being out of postseason contention before the final week of the season is far from a product that will drive fans to Jubilee Park every night and finishing second last in the league will be something that the Cardinals will be hoping is not a repeat as they look to conquer a streak of missing the playoffs that has been going on for far too long.
Not everything was negative about the Cardinals 2013 campaign as the team showed some fight once eliminated from the playoffs, banding together and going on a four game win streak to end the year off on a positive note even if they fell two wins shy of the Weyburn Beavers for the third place playoff spot in the East.
That streak near the end of the season may have been enough to convince manager Bill Sobkow to bring back a handful of returning Cardinals players for the 2014 season, the second year of the Western league being a 100% summer league for college players from Canada, the United States and beyond.
One of the positions that will be seeing the most returnees in 2014 will be the pitchers as the Cardinals are planning on bringing back several key arms from a staff that was hit or miss last year, allowing most of the standouts to return in the hope that they can perform well and mix with the new faces to put together a potent pitching staff this year.
Jacksonville, Alabama's Jeff Pool is one of those starters as the workhorse for the Cardinals who set the team record for innings pitched in a season last year with 59.1 innings of work will return to the team.
Pool's record and numbers were nothing eye popping as he held a 4.39 ERA and a 3-5 record on the mound, but his ability to provide durability and work high numbers of innings will be something that Sobkow should appreciate down the stretch this season.
Local talent Kody Rock will also return to the Yorkton pitching staff as the Canora product was announced as one of the Cards 2014 returnees this offseason. Rock was young of the younger players on the Cardinals last season, but he still managed to do some steady work in relief from time to time and even finished fifth on the team in strikeouts. Entering his second season in the WMBL expect a more productive season from the lanky hurler from just outside of Yorkton.
Another notable local talent that will be pitching for the Cardinals this season will be Yorkton's Derek Marshall as the former Yorkton Minor Baseball product and Sacred Heart grad will be making his WMBL debut after a season playing college ball at Southeastern Illinois. The former Yorkton Yankees pitcher will be looking to prove his worth against players who should be much older than the young and barely removed from high school Marshall, something that should help his development at the same time as allowing him to represent his hometown team this summer.
Kameron Mizzell will also return to the fold for the Cardinals giving the Yorkton club a versatile player who had one of the best bats on the team in addition to being able to play both pitcher and catcher. If Sobkow can get production from Mizzell as he did last season the Yorkton lineup could also improve in 2014.
With many new faces and returning ones coming to Yorkton for experience in one of the best summer baseball leagues in Canada the Yorkton Cardinals know that they will need to improve across the board should they make a run to having their first winning season in years. Balancing developing young college ballplayers skills while also finding ways to win as much as possible has been no easy task in recent years, but after a long stretch with no playoffs it is quite clear that the Cardinals will need a rejuvenation in the club soon to get a winning atmosphere back around Jubilee Park.
To create a winning atmosphere you first need a good roster to build around, that is what the Cardinals fans and supporters will be hoping they have for the first time in a long while as they await Opening Day. Without playoff baseball for far too long, hopefully this will be the year where the summer magic of following a winning baseball team finds its way back to the city.
