Our 2027 "You’re The GM!" payroll tool has released

[Fish On First]

Every offseason, we offer our You’re The GM! tool to build your ideal Miami Marlins roster. This year, we’ve updated and streamlined the tool a bit to improve the experience.

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 the team they know inside and out. It’s meant to give fans the opportunity to discuss—and, let’s be honest, argue—how they would approach the long, dark MLB offseason.

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 Marlins 2026 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 throughout the offseason. As the offseason landscape changes, users often return multiple times over the winter and create new blueprints.

Before we get into the breakdown of the tool, you can save your blueprint and come back 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). Create an account on DiamondCentric.net, then return here, log in using those credentials, and get to creating your 2027 blueprint!

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 a desktop due to its complexity, but it will work on mobile devices if need be).

 

Top Left: The 26-Man Roster

We have created a rough guideline for the Marlins 26-man roster. The roster is flexible; you can add or remove players as you see fit. We’ve also included either guaranteed salaries or, in the case of arbitration and contract options, the recommendations of MLB Trade Rumors. 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 your offseason. Acquiring dead money should be uncommon, but we want to give users the option to take on dead salary if it suits their purposes.

 

Bottom Left: Arbitration & Trade Decisions

Here, you will find a selection of arbitration options and internal options (usually from the 40-man roster or minor leagues) to assist in building your offseason roster. On the right-hand side of this column, you will see Trade Candidates, a list of the 40 players most likely to be traded this offseason, again per MLB Trade Rumors. To help you get up to speed with these candidates, we offer a direct link to the MLBTR write-up on trade candidates.

 

Bottom Right: Free Agents

Here, you will find the top 75 free agents according to our rankings on DiamondCentric. These are sorted by position to facilitate quickly finding your desired free agent and include the recommended salary for that player. Because this is a blueprint for a single year, we only include their projected salary for the coming season, not the number of years, deferrals, or anything else.

 

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 the budget is only a guideline, and you can go above 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 with your blueprint (e.g., Be Unreasonable, Sign Tarik Skubal!). When your blueprint posts for other users, it will read “Your Username’s 2027 Payroll Blueprint: Be Unreasonable, Sign Tarik Skubal!”.

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 Marlins to bring in new players), why you targeted specific free agents, and any promotions from the minors you advocate or any options you declined to extend to a specific player. 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 Fish On First. I hope you enjoy playing the role of general manager, at least for a moment!

Start Your Payroll Blueprint Now

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