Trading Rules

[sharpie]

After what has happened over the last few days, not necessarily to do with the Swans, but all trades in general, I believe that changes need to be made to the whole trading/drafting procedures. Here are some ideas, would like to see what other people think could change:

The Rawlings trade fiasco shows that teams at the bottom of the ladder have far too much bargaining power. The Bulldogs, already having priority picks in the main draft, they would get him for free in the preseason draft. They get two bites, or more even, of the cherry. So what can be done? Either they scrap the priority picks idea for teams that win less than 5 games in a season, or they allocate picks in the preseason draft randomly.

The Nicks Stevens trade makes me laugh. He now still goes to Carlton, where he didn't want to go. I reckon he wanted to go to Collingwood coz he wants to be in a winning team. What a d**khead. And if I was a Port fan, I'd be fuming. I dont know what can be done in this case, its still similar to the above case, since Carlton keep their #2 draft pick and get Stevens in the preseason draft.

The other option that could happen is to extend the trade period, so that trades are not so rushed, allowing more sensible decisions to be made. Who knows? But this system doesnt seem to work. However, I may just be bitter because of the Swans apparent poor effort this week. Last year I was a much happier man coz we'd screwed Collingwood over, so maybe its just a matter of waiting your turn. Hmmm...

[Steve]

The Rawlings/Stevens situation has been building for a few years - to date clubs like Collingwood (wanting Stevens) and North (wanting Rawlings) have gone into negotiations basically saying 'he wants to play for us, not you, if you don't deal on our terms you lose him for nothing, you can't shop him around elsewhere b/c he has to sign off on the deal (ie. we are the only club he will agree to go to) - we have the bargaining power not you'.

These events are probably a good thing for the trading period going forward - next time around hopefully players won't be so quick to up and leave demanding where they go, and even if they do so their nominated club of preference will be a bit more realistic about what they offer.

I assume Port have taken a hard line thinking ahead with players like Salopek.

Hawthorn and the Bulldogs are absolutely guilty of draft tampering - the trade was more like:

Pick 6 --> Veale and a commitment that you won't re-sign Rawlings or trade him to North

Good luck to them - the AFL aren't going to penalise them, as it would mean they'd have to admit their system is flawed and open to manipulation.

[swansrock4eva]

The preseason picks iirc are allocated randomly anyway, depending on which clubs nominate to enter (as opposed to the national where picks are allocated according to ladder position).

I think part of the point of the way the national draft is run is to in fact give the bottom teams a bit of a leg up so that we don't have the top teams always at the top like they were before the introduction of things such as the salary cap and the draft. You've heard the theory that every team has 3years at the top and this is one reason why - you build up your good players obtained through high draft picks from when you were bottom of the ladder to then be up the top a few years later. As your good players age a bit and move past their prime, the team drops down the ladder again and you end up back at the bottom to start the process again. What they choose to do with your picks (i.e. use them as bargaining tools or to pick up the top youngsters) is up to them but every club's recruiting team has to look at whether they trade off the top picks for ready-made players who are CURRENTLY at their peak (and much closer to going off the boil), or invest in the long term future of the player group by holding onto the picks and picking up the youngsters. For its purposes, imo it's actually not a bad system per se but it's up to the recruiting teams to make it work for their clubs.

[hardluck_harry]

I think they should scrap the pre-season draft and out of contract, delisted players go in the national draft. Then the teams with the early picks lose a bit of their bargaining power.

[robbieando]

I think you have to keep the pre season draft because the 2nd you allow uncontracted players to enter the draft, it makes it unbalanced. I think the National Draft should be a Entry draft, so no one who has AFL expirence can enter it, just 1st year players. The Pre Season Draft is then used for uncontracted and dislisted players.

[Bleed Red Blood]

The system does need a total change it just doesnt work the way it is now.

[Bear]

isn't the whole point of the draft that the lower teams have the greatest advantage

[liz]

Re: Trading Rules

Originally posted by sharpie
. So what can be done? Either they scrap the priority picks idea for teams that win less than 5 games in a season, or they allocate picks in the preseason draft randomly.

I agree with these, or a variation on them.

Maybe retain the priority pick idea but limit it to a team that has finished with very few wins in two out of three consecutive seasons and not made the finals in the other (ie to discourage the Melbourne yo-yo effect). I'd reduce the wins down to 3 or 4 as well. I think it is important that seriously struggling clubs get extra help but a priority pick should be an exception rather than the rule. When was the last season no club got a priority pick? I think you may have to go back as far as 1998 when the Lions got the spoon. And to regularly have 2 or 3 clubs get one is ridiculous, particularly when one of those clubs was in the finals the previous season.

I don't understand why they scrapped the pre-season draft lottery system. It seemed like a good way of making clubs trade properly. I'd extend the lottery to all of the non-finalists, or include all clubs but strongly weight their probabilities of getting a the top picks in reverse order to their finishing position. Imagine how people would feel if Brisbane landed with the first PS pick and were able to add NS or JR to their squad - salary cap permitting.

As for trading itself, maybe this year will get clubs to change their thinking and realise they do have to give up something to get a top notch player. I can fully understand Port not wanting to give Stevens to Collingwood for next to nothing.

I have wondered, however, if this is hypocritical from us. Did we give Collingwood fair price for Davis last year? The fact that they themselves got Woewodin for around pick 16, Blumfield went for 31 and Davis didn't finish in our B&F top 10 despite playing all games suggests the price we paid wasn't too far off the mark but I guess ones perspective depends on which side of the trade you sit. Davis undoubtedly has the talent to be an important player for us for another 8 or so years.

[Charlie]

Considering the over-inflated market value of draft picks, the second-rounder was right for Davis. When a Brownlow Medallist is hawked off for a pick outside the top 10, it'd be hard to justify trading a top 20 pick for Davis.

[sharpie]

how's this for an idea, along the lines of Lizz's thoughts on the allocation of preseason draft picks. Only finalise the order after the trading period, so that what happened with Rawlings would not occur, since the Bulldogs would not have known that they'd get him if he had to nominate for the draft.

[Charlie]

Well... um... actually, they were going to do that last year... then the AFLPA caused a big stink and they had to backtrack. Result: Jade Rawlings, one of the players the protest was supposed to protect, gets shafted. Oh... the irony.