Mavs getting ready
Hat WMBL team winding up to June 2 season opener
Change is a constant when your roster is filled with college athletes, but that also means a lot of question marks this time of year for the Medicine Hat Mavericks.
What players are coming? Which ones might still be in playoffs the first week of June, when the Western Major Baseball League season is set to begin? Will there be enough pitchers to get through a grueling twomonth campaign plus playoffs?
Thanks to some changes behind the scenes, owner Greg Morrison thinks the start of this season will be a lot less stressful.
“I got back into me being the guy again,” said Morrison, who had tried to let coaches handle scouting and player acquisition the past few seasons. “Getting reacquainted and talking to the players, that was something the last couple years I got away from.
“I think as an organization, for culture, it’s a good thing for me as an owner to be involved.”
It’s not as though he was never part of the process – the guy pays the bills, after all, and his background as a minor league player in the ’90s plus his contacts were still bringing in recruits.
He’s still not the general manager. Taylor Swannack has that title now, in addition to her running promotions and media. The Hat product recently married ex-Mavs pitching coach Kyle, who himself is back in the role after a year off the roster, plus he’s an assistant GM.
“Last year I was off, just up here watching, supporting and I was a fan last year,” said Kyle. “It is a little more different, I’m in charge of more stuff with the grounds crew.”
And he’s in constant contact with the players who will begin arriving in two weeks, ready for the June 2 season opener in Okotoks.
One of the biggest roster surprises is another returnee, Blake Rowlett. The infielder spent last season with the rival Okotoks Dawgs, but will finish his WMBL eligibility in the city he won a championship with in 2014. Cousins Talon (the pitcher from Saskatoon) and Zack (the outfielder from Medicine Hat) Kunkel are back too.
After that, expect a lot of new faces. In particular, Kyle Swannack notes there are a lot more left-handed pitchers coming – last season the staff had exactly zero southpaws.
“We’ve got a lot of lefties in the lineup, maybe two righties,” he said. “We’ve got two outfielders that can pitch too.”
All of this will be music to the ears of the other major new cog, Michael Thompson. The Mavericks hired Thompson as their head coach in January and he’s finishing up assistant coaching at Vanguard University in California before coming north.
One bit of bad news is that local product Nolan Rattai will not play summer ball this year. He was a big reason the team went 30-17 and got to the league semifinals in 2016 — they fell to Edmonton in a best-of-five series.
The Mavericks will hold a fan festival from 5-7 p.m. June 1 with entertainment and a chance to meet the players. Their home opener is Monday, June 5 against Lethbridge.