Well, well, well, welcome back to another edition of the Discord Dispatches, the most highly talked about dispatches in our Slack channel. This edition was just a hodgepodge of questions thrown out to me on our Discord after I groveled for a while.

A quick refresher on our Discord, sign up for 10$ and you get access to all of our rankings early (I guess that doesn’t matter much now) but still good to easily search our rankings throughout the year. To get access to our members-only Discord you only need to pay 15$ to get access to the Discord and rankings. The Discord is over 150 members at this moment who have been having great discussions lately and it’s the easiest and fastest way to reach out to a Guru, usually within an hour. It’s such a great tool to have this time of year as you prepare for dynasty start-ups, FYPD, keeper leagues or I guess redrafts.

As a reminder, Discord Dispatches is an article where I (plus sometimes a guest if I beg hard enough) answer questions from our Discord, about various topics that I’ll either ask for open questions (like this article) or want questions on something more specific so I can go into more detail. As it is, I answered ten questions from our members on various topics but only touched on them superficially.

@eric-southsiders asks:

Out of these three White Sox players who will have the best season of Jiménez, Robert, or Colas?

Whoever stays healthy between Jiménez and Robert is the cheap answer, with neither being able to cross the 100-game threshold in a few years. I would like to say Colas as he’s the shiny new toy but last year was his first year of pro ball, he mashed in Double-A but Im not sure he’s quite ready for the show yet. The white sox very well may run him out there most days since they need a corner outfield bat but there will be growing pains with Colas for sure. My final answer is Eloy will finally have a healthy year (I believe the report I read says he will mostly be DHing) and hit 30 home runs with a respectable line of .264/.327/.456 (that’s the BatX projection which I tend to favor, although they only have 24 home runs for him.)

How long until Elly De La Cruz is up full time and what position does he take over?

I won’t win any fanfare for this but I think he will get called up in the September time frame if at all, he’s still just 21 years old and has plenty to work on down in the minors and the Reds really have no reason to start his service time this year. From everything I’ve seen he is serviceable at SS, but there are Marte and Arroyo on the farm as well although Marte is ultimately destined for second base or a corner outfield spot it seems. My guess is they will trot Elly out at the six and let him have a legitimate shot at it (much like the Pirates with Cruz) and if he’s not completely useless will keep him there.

@visgc asks:

Does the Royal’s young OF offer any deep-league potential? Waters and Olivares have some buzz but haven’t heard much about Eaton & Isbel

Olivares is always tempting if they would just stick with him to see what they have and it looks like this year he has a spot coming into camp. I believe a report I was just reading said that Waters and Isbel will duke it out for the centerfield spot this Spring Training and between the two I would prefer Isbel over Waters fantasy-wise as he should steal more bags (but kill you everywhere else.) From that same report, they’re saying Eaton will take reps at third because of the cramped outfield. I gotta tell ya though, none of those guys should be rostered in a 15-team league, but if it’s 30 teams or an AL-only league and you just need warm bodies I would snag Olivares for the potential or Eaton for the steals.

These next four questions are from our community member @PolarBear:

Does Oscar colas have a shot at AL rookie of the year

Yes, will it happen? Probably not

What is the realistic outlook for Adalaberto Mondesi

I like what BatX is projecting, .210/.257/.353 with 29 steals in 100 games and that seems a nice middle ground of outcomes for him. He doesn’t need to make a lot of impact with the bat to utilize his speed.

Of the top four pitching prospects, which one has the best major league career (GRod, Painter, Tiedemann, Eury Perez)

Its generally an exercise in futility projecting out a young player’s career but as it stands now, give me Painter although it’s between him and Grayson (maybe this is a cop-out? I don’t know, they’re the ones with the least amount of questions marks)

What prospect outside of the top 200 lists has the best year and moves up the most?

I think Gunnar Hoglund at 206 is a pretty safe bet after recovering from Tommy John most of last year, he had a refined repertoire in college and was seen as a polished prospect already with a wipeout slider.

Give him a full season in the low minors and watch those strikeouts pile up and there will be some helium attached to him.

@hamsterjockey writes:

Does Jason Heyward’s career get revitalized with the Dodgers?

Revitalized is a strong word for what Heyward will most likely do with the Dodgers, I know Roberts has said he has a leg up on the competition for the final outfield spot but man it’s rough. There’s nothing in Heyward`s profile suggesting a bounce back and I don’t think he will ever really get consistent playing time to warrant any help fantasy-wise. I think he gets less than 200 at-bats and does nothing with them while not hurting the Dodgers in the field. I don’t know if you call that revitalized or not, but probably not. He is retooling his swing in hopes of regaining some of the lost mojo he had four years ago, but I’m not buying it.

Fellow guru @Drew Spurling asks:

Do we think Brice Turang keeps the everyday 2B for Milwaukee?

Yes is the simple answer unless they go out and get somebody at the deadline but I think that’s more of an indictment of Hiura than how good Turang is going to be. If he can build on `22 and hit the ball with more authority I think he has a really good chance because his defense and speed will play and he won’t have to do much with the bat.

I’ll be a little more optimistic than the projections and say .240/.309/.336 with 19 steals.

Second-year player looking to buy/sell:

I’m all in on Oneil Cruz and think this will be the cheapest you will be able to get him (and the cost is high as it is) I love the adjustments he made at the plate late in the year, and I have a bet going with Ross that Cruz will have 30 home runs before Wander Franco reaches 20 and I think he can do that this year, a 30/30 season isn’t out of the realm of possibility for him. Of course, there’s a huge amount of risk with saying that and it could look extremely foolish come to the end of the season but here we are, just emerging from our winter slumber and dreaming of potential.

One guy I’m out on relative to his cost is Michael Harris II, his current ADP is a second or third-round pick and I just don’t see him returning value there. He has a tendency to hit the ball into the ground too much and he does have swinging strike issues (as does Cruz admittedly.)

That’s all for this edition folks, I’ll see you next time.