Trade target discussion (merged thread)

[Mug Punter]

I think it's pretty clear now that we expect, or know, that Dunkley will nominate us and that we plan to draft him. As it works out, we should be able to draft Dunkley without going into deficit or perhaps a small deficit if he goes anywhere in the second round, even early. This is based on Mills being bid at #3. Anything after that will be a cakewalk. It is only an estimate, but I think that all our picks above 40 will be elevated by around 5 or 6 due to us along with GWS and Brisbane using multiple picks to acquire first round players. This should equate to around 250 additional points. So even with having to fork up 1787 value points for Mills if Melbourne bid for him, we should still have around 650 points to use for Dunkley, which equates to a pick 22. So we should be okay.

It appears that the academy clubs were well prepared on how the points system worked and played it well. I thought we might disguise our intentions a bit, but it seems that we instead planned to match any reasonable bid for Mills and Dunkley. In this regard, it seems that we played the game very well indeed, as did GWS and Brisbane. GC were in a weak position given their loss of players due to culture problems and lack of academy prospects.

If we take the trade period as a whole, we swapped Jetta for Sinclair and Bird for Talia. Jetta is a special talent and although his specific talents cannot be replaced, his place in the side will not be difficult to fill. Sinclair and Talia are just reasonable prospects at this stage but play in positions where we have a need. Adding O'Riordan, although speculative, gives us access to what seems to be the best young Irish footballer available. And we got the points we need to get Mills and Dunkley. I saw that AJ has been given a contract for next year, even before he has his surgery.

We didn't have to sacrifice future draft picks to freshen up our list with some good talent. We may not have everything quite right to challenge for a premiership, but we have a very good shot of staying in the top 4. Geelong and Collingwood may have done well in the trade period, but at the expense of the next 2 drafts. Only time will see how that strategy pay off.

Hard to add too much to that, pretty much nails it.

I must say I thought GWS's strategy was pretty bizarre the way they just cleared everyone out but they clearly needed to shift players and $ off their list but all the will be able to recruit is Hopper and Kennedy, Himmelberg they will not have enough points for unless they dip into their first rounder they got from the Pies which I guess they could do. How Melbourne picked up Bugg for a pack of crisps I'll never be able to work out.

I thought that perhaps we could have tried for Plowman but I guess we only has enough money in the kitty for one player apart from Jetta's replacement and Talia was the man we identified. I like him and think he may well be another great recycled player for us.

The biggest winners this trade period for mine are Carlton. 5 players in included a couple of decent prosects from GWS plus picks 1,8,11 and 19. They've got the best list manager in the business in SOS

[R-1]

Bird is good and will be missed, but he is entirely expendable when he's part of the area in which we have major depth. That's just list management. It would have been silly not to turf a decent midfielder if only for cap balance. We traded him for virtually nothing which is a bit disappointing, but viewed as a whole we shored up areas where we lack depth.

Brisbane are the bigwinners in my view, from where they were starting getting pick upgrades and replacement talls and midfielders was a really good outcome. Bastinac will be very solid for them.

[Levii3]

Talking about delistings i know it won't happen but Benny McGlynn is an interesting one only played 3 games after round 9 and wasn't picked after he recovered from injury in the second half of the year. Turns 31 next year might just play reserves next year and retire

[Ludwig]

I must say I thought GWS's strategy was pretty bizarre the way they just cleared everyone out but they clearly needed to shift players and $ off their list but all the will be able to recruit is Hopper and Kennedy, Himmelberg they will not have enough points for unless they dip into their first rounder they got from the Pies which I guess they could do. How Melbourne picked up Bugg for a pack of crisps I'll never be able to work out.

At first I found some of the Giants' trading a bit bizarre, but they will enter the 2016 with 4 1st round picks and 2 second rounders, including Carlton's 1st rounder, the likely #1 pick. I haven't done the calculations, but it looks like they will have more than enough to cover Hopper and Kennedy. They are also looking at a top KPF prospect in 2016 in McCready. So their future looks bright. If anything, maybe they gave away a bit out of fear that they will become Eddie's next target, and we all know what happens from there.

[Mug Punter]

The impact of the Swans/GWS/Lions trade strategy is amazing when you see that our pick 69 could easily be mid 50s by the time we have to match Dunks Jnr, same as picks 54 and 44 (which will be pushed back initially) will become early 40s picks.

We may well be able to also have a decent draft pick in the 40s on top of Dunks and if Dunks get picked too high we get two 40s picks and we all know the value we've gotten there in the past. One thing sis for sure, we won't be dipping into deficit, not by a long way

[Mug Punter]

At first I found some of the Giants' trading a bit bizarre, but they will enter the 2016 with 4 1st round picks and 2 second rounders, including Carlton's 1st rounder, the likely #1 pick. I haven't done the calculations, but it looks like they will have more than enough to cover Hopper and Kennedy. They are also looking at a top KPF prospect in 2016 in McCready. So their future looks bright. If anything, maybe they gave away a bit out of fear that they will become Eddie's next target, and we all know what happens from there.

That's a fair point, perhaps they are acutely aware of claims of talent banking and decided to nip it in the bud so that they don't have huge numbers of first rounders playing in the twos next year. Suspect they were made aware of this by HQ.

Their trading position next year looks ominous and Carlton's pick should more than cover their next Gun. Think the uplift factor from us should also be worth a bit to then too from our picks we give up. I am so glad they held firm with McCarthy, they can still trade him next year if they want to but it sends a real signal to that playing group.

[liz]

I was a little bewildered by some of the trades, and some of what clubs picked. Bastinac to Brisbane, for example. He's a solid player but they paid pick 17 plus a downgrade of later picks. I wouldn't have paid that. And Melksham for pick 25? I know they're both a bit younger than Bird but the disparity in how the market valued them relative to Bird did startle me a bit. I guess Bird must have been on a fatter contract than I thought.

I am not convinced by SOS as a list manager. He's gone after a raft of second tier Giants players. Again, they should be solid contributors and most of them are too good to be playing NEAFL but I doubt any of them are stars. I was very surprised by them trading out Menzel. Maybe he requested the trade but he was one of the few players on their list who had some class. And the late suggestion of them trading Everitt to the Gold Coast - what was that about. I know it didn't happen but I am surprised they even thought about it. He's been a good player for the Blues since he left us, and he's experienced. They have a pretty young list and thought they'd be actively hanging onto players in Everitt's age range.

Also, the trading out of so many of the Giants' younger players for bargain prices shows that they were a long way off nailing a lot of their high draft picks. It's a good thing they had so many!

The trading of future picks will lead to some fascinating retrospective analysis based on where different clubs finish. One of the good things is that it reduces the inclination to tank where a team has already traded out its first round pick, or swapped it with someone else's.

[Ludwig]

I was a little bewildered by some of the trades, and some of what clubs picked. Bastinac to Brisbane, for example. He's a solid player but they paid pick 17 plus a downgrade of later picks.
.

Brisbane added value point in the downgrade and also received a 2016 3rd rounder. I think would come out to something like Bastinac and pick 40 for pick 17, which looks about right (especially if that pick 40 is a Luke Parker ).

[Meg]

Was a part of the trade out of players by GWS driven by their need to drop their list down by two players for 2016?

The only source I can find is Wikipedia but assuming that is right: GWS was initially allowed a senior list of 50 players in 2012 (with an accompanying salary cap boost). This dropped to 48 in 2015 with future drops down to 46 (2016), 44 (2017), 42 (2018) and AFL standard in 2019.

As I understand part of the underlying intent right from the GWS set-up was to give them good trade material to enable them to strengthen their list with either trade in of experienced players or accumulation of high draft picks. Given that the Academy points system was introduced subsequent to the GWS set-up, this is now fortuitous as it serves them well in accumulating points for their desired Academy draft selections.

[Meg]

Here's an article explaining the points system and the reason for the Swans and GWS trading higher picks for multiple lower picks. Doesn't add anything new for most of us - but I'm sure for many AFL supporters of non-Academy clubs this is all quite bewildering. So articles such as this one are probably quite valuable.

For example, when I was in Adelaide early in the 2015 season for our match against Port Adelaide, where Heeney was quite prominent, I was later on explaining the Academy system and how we had recruited Heeney to my Adelaide relatives who had been at the match. It was all new to them - and I suspect that would not be unusual.

Explaining AFL s trade points system - The West Australian

[ugg]

GWS elected to go with two less players in 2015 so they had no need to cut players numerically speaking for next year

But they have up to five academy players hopefully coming in so that's the main reason they are dumping a lot of players to clear list space.

[Meg]

Yes I understand that the main reason they traded out players was to make room for Academy Players. But they can only have 46 players in total - are you saying they dropped down by four last year and were already down to 46 in 2015? That's interesting - do you know why? Salary cap pressure???

[ugg]

Yes they had 45 senior and 1 rookie listed player this year. not sure of the exact reason but I think playing time must have come into the equation with the listed players restrictions in the NEAFL. perhaps also extra costs associated with supporting two more players in terms of coaches, support staff etc

[ugg]

Just counted they had 46 senior and 1 rookie

[ugg]

Btw as I understand it GWS have 10 picks with draft points value but they need to have 10 vacancies to be able to bring those picks to draft night. By my count they're going to have to delist two players. Golds looks likely as one but the other is a lot harder. Perhaps Mohr and redraft him to the rookie list but another team could pounce on him if they do so