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With a big week ahead that will shape the 40-man roster going into the bulk of the offseason, Brewers senior vice president and general manager Matt Arnold is coming off his first major event as the head of the team’s baseball operations department.

Arnold, who ascended to the top spot when David Stearns stepped down from president of baseball ops and into a consultant role last month, spoke to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand at the General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas. Next week, Arnold and the Brewers face a series of decisions. Tuesday is the deadline to protect Rule 5 Draft-eligible prospects, including Milwaukee’s top infield prospect, Brice Turang, by adding them to the 40-man roster. And Friday is the deadline to commit to going forward in arbitration with their 18 eligible players, a list that includes Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Willy Adames, Hunter Renfroe, Eric Lauer, Luis Urías, Rowdy Tellez, Keston Hiura, Adrian Houser and others.

Here are some of the notable things Arnold had to say in Vegas:

With so many arb-eligible players, and without a limitless payroll, could there be some non-tenders that surprise fans?

“I think we’re still in the process of discussing it. Certainly, we have to be open to how flexible we are with our roster right now. But all of these guys, we have the capability to bring them back. We have the support of ownership to do it as well.”

Are the Brewers getting a lot of interest from other teams on the big names in that group?

“Sure, yeah. This time especially, you get phone calls from all levels of asks. I think we’re still in the process of gathering that. But right now, yeah, we’re getting a lot of incoming calls. We’re making outgoing calls. We’re really early in the process. We’re just kind of gauging the market overall.”

Burnes, Woodruff and Adames all have two years to go before free agency. Has there been talk about extensions with any of them?

“Definitely open to it. Right now, look, I’m just getting into this. We’re a week into this. I’d love to have conversations with those guys. They mean a ton to our franchise and our city, and those guys are parts of championship-caliber teams. So we’d love to have [those conversations] as soon as possible.”

Is there any timeframe to getting one or more of those deals done?

“No. We’re pretty open-ended, I would say.”

Looking forward to this offseason, is there a specific priority in terms of where to improve the team?

“I think we have a handful of free agents -- [Omar] Narváez and [Jace] Peterson -- that we will hopefully remain engaged with. We’re obviously losing a bat like [Andrew] McCutchen, so on the offensive side, those are some spots we will be looking to backfill if we’re not able to bring those guys back. And obviously, we’re always looking for pitching. We believe it’s the strength of our team, but it can’t hurt to continue to assess the pitching market as well.”

What was it like being in the top spot at the GM Meetings for the first time?

“It’s exciting. It is. We’ve had such continuity here, so it’s not like we’re changing a lot. But it’s been exciting to assess what we’ve been able to accomplish over the last seven years with David and I together -- and David is still here. I talked to him [Tuesday], he’s doing great. I’m excited to continue to partner with him as long as he wants to continue advising. He’s still going to be a great resource. We have a great group of people here and I’m just excited to be a part of it.”