Brock Beauchamp

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has earned yet another All‑Star starting nod as the American League’s first baseman, marking his fifth All‑Star selection and fourth time chosen as a starter, leading all AL first basemen in fan voting with just shy of 1.2 million votes. Guerrero Jr. is hitting .278/.383/.446 with 12 home runs, 44 RBIs, and 54 runs scored across 85 games. Statcast metrics underline his elite contact: a 53.4% hard‑hit rate, .362 wOBA, and .415 xwOBA. Fresh off signing his new 14-year, $500 million contract in April, Guerrero Jr. will represent the Jays once again in the Midsummer Classic. The All-Star Game is scheduled on July 15 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Every offseason, we offer our You’re The GM! tool (formerly the Payroll Blueprint) to build your ideal Blue Jays 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 Blue Jays. 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 Blue Jays' 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 Blue Jays' 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 Jays Centre. I hope you enjoy playing the role of general manager, at least for a moment! Start Your Trade Deadline Blueprint

Victor Arias was signed by the Toronto Blue Jays out of Venezuela in 2019. It has been a long and winding path for him through the minor leagues, as he pushes toward the majors. It started with an above-average showing as a 17-year-old in the Dominican Summer League (DSL) in 2021. He had a 118 wRC+ to go with a slash line of .248/.388/.339, two home runs, and an elite walk rate of 17.9%. Sticking out as a negative would be his groundball rate of 52.1%, and that hasn't improved much over the years. In 2022, Arias repeated the DSL for a short 19-game stint. He got the ball in the air more, and his numbers jumped up, with him seeing his batting average rise to .315 and his on-base rate to .448. The next year saw a shortened season for him; he only played in 41 games at Rookie ball and three each at Single A and Double A. Despite being young, he still had a 109 wRC+ over those 47 games and a walk rate of 17.6%. 2024 would see Arias get a mostly full season, this time at Single A for 76 games. He really stepped up his game with a 146 wRC+ and earned a short 11-game stretch at High A to end the year. There, he stood out over the small sample, hitting .324/.425/.353 with a 150 wRC+. In 2025, he played the most games in one season of his minor league career, 102 between High-A Vancouver and Double-A New Hampshire. Combined, he would slash .272/.353/.403, with a 114 wRC+, launching seven home runs and seven triples and swiping 18 bags. What To Like Arias doesn't have a big frame, listed at 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, but he puts everything he has into his swings. At one point in 2025, he was sporting a very good average exit velocity and 90th percentile exit velocity, 93 mph and 110.1 mph, respectively, according to Baseball America. His swing speeds are exceptional, and he transfers his weight well with his leg kick. This helped him to hit seven home runs, seven triples (98th percentile), and 19 doubles (80th percentile) last season. The young outfielder pairs his great exit velocities with above-average speed on the bases. He swiped 18 bags in 2025, which was good enough for the 80th percentile in the minor leagues. It appears he is well on his way to having an above-average profile with the bat, especially when it comes to extra-base hits, along with above-average potential on the bases. What To Work On The thing Arias needs to work on most is also the reason his elite raw power hasn't translated into more in-game power: his launch angles. He routinely has been a hitter who pounds the ball into the ground. He is also rather consistent with his groundball rates, hovering around 50-54% for his minor league career. Aside from his short sample in his second year at the DSL level, he has hit groundballs at a feverish pace (52%, 52%, 53%, 51%, 54%). If nothing changes, it will definitely be expected for those numbers to continue to climb as he moves up levels and faces tougher pitching. If he can drop that number down to the upper 30s or lower 40s, he would see a dramatic jump in his home run total. Pull-side power is how Arias will make a name for himself, if he can keep the ball in the air more than he has in the past, but he also needs to use the middle of the field more. He only hit 24.6% of his batted balls up the middle this past year. When he is facing tougher lefty-on-lefty matchups, he will need to hit the ball back up the middle or to the opposite field more. In 2025, he hit just .242/.301/.305 versus left-handed pitchers and didn't hit any home runs. As he continues to move up levels, he will need to improve those numbers against lefties, or he may ultimately fall into a utility role or drop back into a fourth outfielder type of potential outcome. What's Next? Arias will likely begin 2026 at Double-A New Hampshire and look to keep hitting his way up levels. If he can improve his groundball rates and keep the ball in the air more, he will see his raw power and elite swing speed translate to more home run power. This should see him unlock his true dual-threat potential as a hitter. The Blue Jays lack power/speed outfielders in the upper minors, so if Arias can keep improving and fix some of his launch angle issues, he may make it up to Triple-A Buffalo by the end of the season and push for some major league at-bats come 2027, when the Blue Jays' outfield should be less crowded.