2019 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[Bloods05]

Are you serious? You seriously do my head in.
Are there sunshine, rainbows and unicorns in your parallel universe?
The only reason we didn't play finals this year is because we had to run the youngest team in the comp due to injury.
Absolutely nothing to do with "poor trading in the past".
If a team wanted to be as successful as us, that is, make the finals almost every year for 20 years, then they need to get Kinnear Beetson in as their recruiting manager.
You're not that good at trolling Barry. You're just full of it.

I need to speak up for Barry here. He's very good at trolling.

[Captain]

Let Hannes go for a song.

Yet we won that trade.

[barry]

Y'all can argue the edges all you like, but when was the last time a team traded away a player for steak knives who won a brownlow the next year. ?

I

[AB Swannie]

Y'all can argue the edges all you like, but when was the last time a team traded away a player for steak knives who won a brownlow the next year. ?

I'm not sure Oli Florent is a "steak knife". Although Florentine steak is pretty good.

Anyway, I have to agree that in any language Hawthorn won that trade. Just like we won a trade with Hawthorn that netted us JPK. You win some, you lose some. I'd argue that our list management team have won more than they have lost as evidenced by our consistent success over the past 20 years.

On a side note. I believe Tom Mitchell was paying $81 to win the Brownlow before the season started in 2017. He then finished third. No one knew he would be a Brownlow winner when we traded him.

[S.S. Bleeder]

Y'all can argue the edges all you like, but when was the last time a team traded away a player for steak knives who won a brownlow the next year. ?

I

+1

[barry]

I'm not sure Oli Florent is a "steak knife". Although Florentine steak is pretty good.

Anyway, I have to agree that in any language Hawthorn won that trade. Just like we won a trade with Hawthorn that netted us JPK. You win some, you lose some. I'd argue that our list management team have won more than they have lost as evidenced by our consistent success over the past 20 years.

On a side note. I believe Tom Mitchell was paying $81 to win the Brownlow before the season started in 2017. He then finished third. No one knew he would be a Brownlow winner when we traded him.

You are mixing up trading with drafting. I think our drafting has improved (Ollie being one example) . Its our trading that has gone down hill.
The JPK trade was back in the day when we did things right. The Mitchell trade was the start of the times where we did things wrong.
Every man and his Dog knew Mitchell would be a star.

[stevoswan]

Are you serious? You seriously do my head in.
Are there sunshine, rainbows and unicorns in your parallel universe?
The only reason we didn't play finals this year is because we had to run the youngest team in the comp due to injury.
Absolutely nothing to do with "poor trading in the past".
If a team wanted to be as successful as us, that is, make the finals almost every year for 20 years, then they need to get Kinnear Beetson in as their recruiting manager.
You're not that good at trolling Barry. You're just full of it.

Spot on.....and I'll add that we poached Simon Dalrymple from the Dogs last year and he is considered one of the best recruiters in the business.....so, with KB, we now have two.

[liz]

I'd rather have Jetta than Sinclair.

Maybe so, but not really relevant. The Swans didn't go out to actively recruit Sinclair and dangle Jetta as currency. The trade was instigated by Jetta wishing to return to WA and he was out of contract. The club salvaged what they thought was the best available return from a situation they probably wished they weren't in (ie they'd have liked to retain Jetta).

[barry]

Maybe so, but not really relevant. The Swans didn't go out to actively recruit Sinclair and dangle Jetta as currency. The trade was instigated by Jetta wishing to return to WA and he was out of contract. The club salvaged what they thought was the best available return from a situation they probably wished they weren't in (ie they'd have liked to retain Jetta).

You can spin in that way, but at the end of the day we got a lesser player in exchange. And Jetta has another premiership.
We actually make Sinclair look good because we have allowed our ruck stocks to be depleted (another poor list management aspect).

At the end of the day, you don't go from flag favourite to 15th in 3 years unless you make a few stuff ups. Let's own them, and correct then.

[Ludwig]

Y'all can argue the edges all you like, but when was the last time a team traded away a player for steak knives who won a brownlow the next year. ?

I

HPN rates Ollie Florent slightly higher in trade value than Tom Mitchell, as of now. So there is some measure by which we won the trade. Of course this takes into consideration that Ollie has an estimated 5 more years of playing value than Tom.

Trades cannot be analysed in isolation, but should be evaluated in a larger strategic context, which includes consideration of:

• TPP status
• Premiership window projection
• Rebuild strategy
• Game plan strategy
• Excesses and deficiencies in player type on the playing list
• Anticipation of which players are more likely to have compound leg fractures

[Ludwig]

You can spin in that way, but at the end of the day we got a lesser player in exchange. And Jetta has another premiership.
We actually make Sinclair look good because we have allowed our ruck stocks to be depleted (another poor list management aspect).

At the end of the day, you don't go from flag favourite to 15th in 3 years unless you make a few stuff ups. Let's own them, and correct then.

You mean allowing our ruckmen to become injured, which I wouldn't classify as poor management.

We've been one of the most competitive clubs this century and usually perform better than most pundits predict. And even in this poor year of 2019, we can see the shaping of a new era of Swans' success.

Your best players getting old, dropping off, getting injured and retiring is not a stuff up. We can also question why Hawthorn has fallen off during the same time frame. And at this point, I would take our list over theirs, although their coach is always capable of pulling off some magic.

[liz]

HPN rates Ollie Florent slightly higher in trade value than Tom Mitchell, as of now. So there is some measure by which we won the trade. Of course this takes into consideration that Ollie has an estimated 5 more years of playing value than Tom.

Trades cannot be analysed in isolation, but should be evaluated in a larger strategic context, which includes consideration of:

• TPP status
• Premiership window projection
• Rebuild strategy
• Game plan strategy
• Excesses and deficiencies in player type on the playing list
• Anticipation of which players are more likely to have compound leg fractures

I add to that list some constraints, including:

- trade currency (for you and the other clubs you may be trading with) is limited and non-fungible
- players are human beings who may have lifestyle preferences or family considerations that don't align with what clubs want (and sometimes are legitimately more worthy of consideration than what clubs want)
- limited time during trade week to execute trades, plus competition (for time and currency) from other clubs also negotiating trades with your trade partner

[Markwebbos]

I think the Swans have had a tendency to want to get a trade done rather than play hardball, and as a result have taken unders. But I also think there’s an understanding with the players that if the club can’t persuade them to stay they’ll try and get them to their destination of choice.

[liz]

I think the Swans have had a tendency to want to get a trade done rather than play hardball, and as a result have taken unders. But I also think there’s an understanding with the players that if the club can’t persuade them to stay they’ll try and get them to their destination of choice.

And there are good reasons for taking that approach.

As I observed in an earlier post, trade period is limited and competitive. When Mitchell formally requested a trade with Hawthorn, everyone knew that the Hawks were also after O'Meara and it was evident that the Suns were going to play hardball on that one to extract as much value as they could (which you can understand, given their ongoing retention issues, often getting far from fair value for players). So the Swans could have taken the view that Mitchell was worth more than pick 14 but the Hawks didn't have much else available. If they'd dug their heels in and held out to the bitter end of trade week to try and get a bit more, even that pick 14 might have disappeared, subsumed in the O'Meara deal, and they might just have had to take something less, whatever was left over. He was out of contract, so refusing to trade at all was unlikely to work out better.

And by completing that trade for a bit less than "fair value" but doing it early in trade week, they then had time to achieve other trade week objectives, which resulted in the pick swap with Port to trade pick 14 up a few spots. Even if they'd still got pick 14 after digging their heels in and holding out to the end of the week, there wouldn't have been much time left to then trade that pick. Or if there was time, Port might already have achieved its pick swap objectives with another club.

And I know some people will dismiss the idea of "reputation" as having any tangible value, but I believe that having a reputation of treating players as humans rather than trade fodder (and being obsessed with always "winning trades", or being perceived to have "won trades") is valuable in persuading current players to extend their contracts and also in attracting other players to want to come to the club. Just because you can't readily quantify that value doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[barry]

HPN rates Ollie Florent slightly higher in trade value than Tom Mitchell, as of now. So there is some measure by which we won the trade.

Ludders, we didn't trade Mitchel for Florent.