2018 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[mcs]

Nobody is death riding Ling, hopefully he turns into a good player for us, but at the moment the Bulldogs have one in the bank with Richards, and we have an as yet unknown quantity. I know which position I'd rather be in

There are plenty writing him off when he basically hasn't been on the park for us though - its one step off that stage.

You could come up with a similar argument almost every season for every club - we took x but could have had y - what terrible recruiting, blah blah blah. At the end of the day, you win some, you lose some. We win a lot more than we lose, and its far too early to truly judge Ling and where he might be at.

[caj23]

There are plenty writing him off when he basically hasn't been on the park for us though - its one step off that stage.

You could come up with a similar argument almost every season for every club - we took x but could have had y - what terrible recruiting, blah blah blah. At the end of the day, you win some, you lose some. We win a lot more than we lose, and its far too early to truly judge Ling and where he might be at.

I don't think anyone's written him off at all

A few have expressed concern for the following reasons:

1. Most experts didn't have him in their top 20 prospects so it was a surprise that we picked him over more highly credentialed draftees (i.e. Richards and Higgins) who are performing well at senior level; and

2. He struggled to find the ball in the few NEAFL games he did play

Given he's been injured it's too early to tell how he'll pan out, and he's contracted for another 2 seasons so hopefully we'll get that opportunity but at the moment there's not enough evidence to call it.

What the earlier poster was saying is that on their performances to date Richards (and Higgins) have shown enough already to suggest that they are going to be long term AFL players. Injury or not, we can't make that call on Ling yet.

[liz]

Yep looking like a pretty bad error, particularly when Ling was considered a reach at where he wAs tAken

Injury or not, we can't make that call on Ling yet.

If we can't yet make that call on Ling, why have you already assessed his drafting as an error?

[mcs]

I don't think anyone's written him off at all

A few have expressed concern for the following reasons:

1. Most experts didn't have him in their top 20 prospects so it was a surprise that we picked him over more highly credentialed draftees (i.e. Richards and Higgins) who are performing well at senior level; and

2. He struggled to find the ball in the few NEAFL games he did play

Given he's been injured it's too early to tell how he'll pan out, and he's contracted for another 2 seasons so hopefully we'll get that opportunity but at the moment there's not enough evidence to call it.

What the earlier poster was saying is that on their performances to date Richards (and Higgins) have shown enough already to suggest that they are going to be long term AFL players. Injury or not, we can't make that call on Ling yet.

As Liz has highlighted, you've already broadly seemed to have reached a conclusiond that it was an error to draft him - that to me is basically equivalent to writing him off - saying 'we could have done better for sure' when we don't know what we have yet.

It wasn't obvious at the time, but with the nature of the injury ling had, its fully understandable why he struggled so much in the few NEAFL games he played.

We may well have erred, but lets give him a chance before declaring his selection to be erroneous.

Anyway, only time will tell hey.

[KSAS]

Bit of talk in the media today on the proposed Hannebery to St Kilda trade:
- Tom Harley refusing to give this story "any oxygen" today saying Hanners is contracted for next 3 years, has not requested to be traded & the club is focused on making the finals.
- Longmire saying he's not involved in any list management & focusing coaching team into the finals.
- Sam McClure on SEN this evening reckons a deal will get done.
- Quite a few in the media think St Kilda chasing Hannebery is not the right move & question if Hanners would want to go to St Kilda.
- Caro on Footy Classified reckons Swans are not happy with how St Kilda approached Hannebery & also thinks this is a act of desperation from Richardson to get quick fix, as his coaching position will be on the line next year (performance clause in his contract). Saints are chasing many players including Jarryd Roughead & Daniel Menzel. I also heard both Dylan Shiel & Josh Kelly have already knocked St Kilda back outright, having no interest going there.
- HS headline reporting the Swans are demanding St Kilda's 1st round (top 10) pick for Hanners, but I can't get past their paywall to read article in detail.

[AB Swannie]

- HS headline reporting the Swans are demanding St Kilda's 1st round (top 10) pick for Hanners, but I can't get past their paywall to read article in detail.

I somehow managed to read the article by following a link on Twitter. I can’t work out how I managed to do it now. Anyway, the suggestion was that the deal would involve a pick upgrade where we get their pick 4 or 5 in exchange for Hanners and our pick 12/13.

[S.S. Bleeder]

I'm happy to have a miss on Ling, and the jury is still out for a couple of seasons, and have snagged the youngest player in the AFL who if he was born two days later would be a top 10 pick this year - Tom McCartin!

KB did the same with Hewitt. History will show his drafting selections are right up there with Graham Wright and Stephen Wells.

[KSAS]

Thanks AB, I managed to briefly open article via Facebook which is written by Sam Landsberger which seems to me is a opinion piece. Copied/pasted the following as rest of the article just repeats what I'd outlined above in my previous post. Effectively we get a 2nd round pick for a AA player who has 3 years remaining on his contract. No thanks!

ST KILDA will be asked to trade its prized first-round draft pick — probably No.3, 4 or 5 — as part of a deal to secure Dan Hannebery.

The Saints would receive back Sydney’s first-round pick — currently No.13 — under the potential trade, according to figures familiar with negotiations.

Under the AFL’s draft points index, the exchange of first-round picks would mean St Kilda would effectively “pay” the equivalent of a pick in the 20s for the premiership Swan.

Sydney could also ask for a sweetener, such as a future pick, given the Saints have deemed the midfielder worthy of a contract until 2022 or 2023.

St Kilda's next pick in the 2018 draft is pick 57.

[S.S. Bleeder]

Bit of talk in the media today on the proposed Hannebery to St Kilda trade:
- Tom Harley refusing to give this story "any oxygen" today saying Hanners is contracted for next 3 years, has not requested to be traded & the club is focused on making the finals.
- Longmire saying he's not involved in any list management & focusing coaching team into the finals.
- Sam McClure on SEN this evening reckons a deal will get done.
- Quite a few in the media think St Kilda chasing Hannebery is not the right move & question if Hanners would want to go to St Kilda.
- Caro on Footy Classified reckons Swans are not happy with how St Kilda approached Hannebery & also thinks this is a act of desperation from Richardson to get quick fix, as his coaching position will be on the line next year (performance clause in his contract). Saints are chasing many players including Jarryd Roughead & Daniel Menzel. I also heard both Dylan Shiel & Josh Kelly have already knocked St Kilda back outright, having no interest going there.
- HS headline reporting the Swans are demanding St Kilda's 1st round (top 10) pick for Hanners, but I can't get past their paywall to read article in detail.

Happy with that last point. Might come down to a swap of first round picks which wouldn't really affect us if we traded other picks to improve our points position.

[waswan]

As long as we can get blakey with our current pick plus a later one why swap a mere 10 picks or there abouts for hannas
What a waste our pick this year still hasnt played why dump a guaranteed top 10 in our 22 for a pick who may not even play.
Im sure with an accumilation of picks we can still get blakey
Give Ling and Blakey a chance for the 22 we got Daqson and Mcartin this year plus CoR plus bring in a trade or free agent
Why grab another pup and lose a guy who can be a star

[ernie koala]

KB did the same with Hewitt. History will show his drafting selections are right up there with Graham Wright and Stephen Wells.

It's amazing how often he has got it wrong with 1st round picks...Lewis Johnston, Josh Willoughby, Daniel O'Keefe etc...

But got it so right with 2nd and 3rd round picks...Parker, Hannebery, Aliir, Hewitt, McCartin etc...

Then there's the Rookie selections, which are off the scale...Smith, Lloyd, Rampe, Grundy, Melican, Papley, Jack etc etc

I wonder why this anomaly has occurred.

Is it spending too much time over analysing and over thinking the 1st rounders? And less time and more just gut feel for the rookie picks.

[liz]

It's amazing how often he has got it wrong with 1st round picks...Lewis Johnston, Josh Willoughby, Daniel O'Keefe etc...

But got it so right with 2nd and 3rd round picks...Parker, Hannebery, Aliir, Hewitt, McCartin etc...

Then there's the Rookie selections, which are off the scale...Smith, Lloyd, Rampe, Grundy, Melican, Papley, Jack etc etc

I wonder why this anomaly has occurred.

Is it spending too much time over analysing and over thinking the 1st rounders? And less time and more just gut feel for the rookie picks.

Some of those first round picks pre-date Beatson. He was at the club in a consultant role when we selected Veszpremi but wasn't in charge. His first selection heading up the recruitment team was Johnston.

Beatson's first round selection record has been a little distorted by three years where there was no real decision to be made - Mitchell, Heeney, Mills. His active selections have included Rohan, Jetta, Towers, Jones, Florent, Hayward and Ling.

[The Big Cat]

The Swans are not demanding anything. The HS article says industry sources believe a swap of picks would be necessary. Harley said on SEN that he is not going to give any oxygen to the story as Hannebery is contracted and he hasn't requested a trade. All paper talk based on St Kilda attention seeking.

[caj23]

If we can't yet make that call on Ling, why have you already assessed his drafting as an error?

Fair call liz, the earlier post was probably a bit harsh

Although he was a riskier pick

[Ludwig]

Let's say the clubs agree that Hanners is worth around 1000 points, equivalent to a pick 19. Assume we have pick 12 and St Kilda have pick 5. If you swap picks, that counts for 600 points, so then you can swap later picks to make up the remaining 400 points. We can use the points to draft Blakey, who will likely cost around the total of our 2 second round draft picks.

Had this sorted out last week.

It looks like St Kilda will end up with pick 4. Carlton are likely to take Sam Walsh. The Suns will probably take Lukosius and either Rankine or Smith. My guess is Smith. And we would take whoever is left over. Both are very good.

So a probable outcome would be:

1. We lose Hanners
2. We get Rankine and Blakey in the draft.
3. We get St Kilda's 2019 2nd round pick. There would be some later round pick swaps.
4. We sign a free agent like Gaff or Dahlhaus.

If we can't achieve this kind of outcome, I don't think the deal gets done. If we can achieve this kind of outcome, the deal would be too good to turn down.

It's nothing to do with how good Hanners is. It's just a matter of value. Other than through top shelf academy picks, we rarely get into the top end of the draft, so when an opportunity presents itself, it's worth taken a hard look at it.

One example of the net effect of all this is that we trade Hanners for Gaff and Izak Rankine. Who wouldn't do that trade?