Brock Beauchamp

Every offseason, we offer our You’re The GM! tool (formerly the Payroll Blueprint) to build your ideal Brewers roster. This year, we’ve updated the tool to include the trade deadline! The idea behind this feature is to give fans a chance to play the role of General Manager (or CBO or PoBO… you get the idea) for their favorite team, the Brewers. It’s meant to allow fans to discuss (and, let’s be honest, argue) how they would approach the MLB trade deadline on July 31st. This tool is intended to be informal and fun, so we’ve left it as open as possible. There is a payroll “budget” that loosely resembles the Brewers' 2025 payroll, but there is no penalty for going over that number. It’s a guideline, nothing more. Second, you can submit as many blueprints as you like up through the deadline. As the deadline landscape changes, users can return and create a new blueprint. Before we delve into the breakdown of the tool, you can save your blueprint and return to it at any time. The only restriction is that you must register an account on the site to create a blueprint (so we can save a draft for you and also post the blueprint for others to discuss). Let’s get into the tool itself. It has four quadrants that work best if addressed in a counter-clockwise order (this tool works much better on desktops and large tablets due to its complexity, but will work on phones if need be). Top Left: The 26-Man Roster We have created a rough guideline for what the Brewers' 26-man roster will look like in late July, assuming no trades are made. The roster is flexible; any player can be added or removed as needed. We’ve also included player salaries. This section is where you build your roster and make changes based on the following two sections. As you make changes to players and salaries, the total payroll number (right side of the screen) will change, allowing you to track your budget on the fly. The bottom field in both columns is for any dead money you assume during the course of wheeling and dealing. Acquiring dead money should be rather uncommon, but we want to present users with the opportunity to take on dead salary if it suits their purposes. Bottom Left: Top Prospects & Internal Options If you decide to be a buyer, we’ve listed the team’s top 20 prospects you can use in trade. We’ve also included some internal options that could be traded or fill in your 26-man roster; most of these players are on the 40-man roster but are no longer considered prospects due to performance or losing prospect status. We’ve also included links in this section: one to our top prospects list, another for building trades on Baseball Trade Values. While BTV is far from a perfect solution for building trades, it can guide you in properly valuing a prospect within an organization. Bottom Right: Trade Deadline Options The Athletic has released their big board of trade candidates; it’s a top-30 list of MLB players who have a decent chance of being traded this July. We’ve listed them in order of position, along with their contract earnings in 2025. If you’re looking to research prospects in another team’s system, we’ve also included a link to an article that contains links to MLB Pipeline’s top-30 prospect rankings for all 30 MLB teams. Top Right: Dead Money, Your Total Payroll, & Commentary The only unalterable field on the page is Dead Money; it is players to whom the team has committed money but has no reasonable way to get out of the contract. Below that, you will see the recommended budget, your current total, and the percentage you are over or under that budget. Again, keep in mind that the budget is only a guideline, and you can exceed it as much as you like… But defend your choices, coward! The following field is 'Title', which gives other users an idea of what to expect from your blueprint (e.g., ‘Trade For Alex Bregman, Damn the Consequences'). When your blueprint posts for other users, it will read, “Your Username’s 2025 Trade Deadline Blueprint: Trade For Alex Bregman, Damn the Consequences.” The following field is Your Comments & Explanation, a long-form field meant to type out the rationale behind your decisions. Here is the place to fully explain your trades (including which players are leaving the team to bring in new players), why you traded for specific players, and any promotions from the minors you advocate. This is often multiple paragraphs; you can write up as much detail as you desire. That’s it, you’re done! At this point, you can either publish your blueprint to the forums or save it for later if you feel it’s incomplete. Thank you for joining us at Brewer Fanatic. I hope you enjoy playing the role of general manager, at least for a moment! Start Your Trade Deadline Blueprint