2020 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[Markwebbos]

People more likely to follow a successful team than a losing one.

I really don’t understand the love for coach Cameron inside GWS.

[Meg]

Yes, there will always be suspicion about third party player payments, until the AFL actually publish what the deals are. Currently, it's almost entirely an information free zone.

I wasn’t referring to ASAs (Additional Service Agreements) where players do promotion and marketing etc. - often for sponsors - through a contract with the club. Though I would expect Geelong would sign players to those (just as the Swans do - we were told when Buddy was recruited that a ‘significant’ part of his salary package was in the form of an ASA).

I meant personal contracts that players enter into that allow their image or TV footage etc. to be used in marketing promotions. These are legitimate as long as the club is not involved (though I would not be surprised if an ‘unofficial’ phone call from someone at the club is often the first step in bringing the parties together).

Adam Goodes at one stage did TV ads for Cadbury. I think that was just a personal contract which would not have involved the Swans.

I don’t think the AFL would have information about these deals, nor should they as long as they are personal deals.

The point of my earlier post is that players in AFL-obsessed cities are more likely to be offered such deals. They do distort the level playing field but they are not illegitimate.

[707]

I've never been a great fan of free agency. Star free agents always favour Clubs at the top. My question here is what other incentives outside of the formal salary cap is Cameron getting to entice him to Geelong?

I've heard Cats players manage to get into lucrative real estate developments at a bargain price!

GWS will no doubt force a trade, will not be taking just pick 10 compo for Cameron, need to fleece Cats of their pick 11 and one of the other firsts. Cats did set a high bar last year with their fleecing of WCE in the Kelly trade, that's the template GWS need to throw on the table at the start of negotiations.

[The Big Cat]

Just looking at our lack of points if we use pick 3 on a non-academy player or a trade, then wish to draft both academy boys. Does anybody know if there’s a cap on the number of points you can go into deficit. We will be many hundreds short even if the boys are selected where expected, let alone if one or both go early.

[Ralph Dawg]

Just looking at our lack of points if we use pick 3 on a non-academy player or a trade, then wish to draft both academy boys. Does anybody know if there’s a cap on the number of points you can go into deficit. We will be many hundreds short even if the boys are selected where expected, let alone if one or both go early.

It's a concern that's for sure. For us, there are a multitude of issues to consider when we draft, in particular the go home factor. I suspect that if we don't see anyone worth the whole of pick 3, we will split it for 2 late first rounders, use one for a player then use the other for points. If we use 3 in its entirety, I can't see how we won't go into deficit for next year.

[KTigers]

Which is why it needs to happen gradually, as it did with the Swans. You can't just graft a team onto a new city and expect people to fall in love with them instantly. And you can't give them unfair advantages, like the ridiculous Riverina thing.

I dunno about that. Admittedly I was young at the time, but it was love at first sight when I saw The Swanettes.

[Thunder Shaker]

I think you could say that after year 3 of the giants, the AFL engineered them not to win a flag with all the stuff and players taken away from them.
With Cameron leaving, the team of ex giants is probably stronger than the still giants.

This was such a problem for the Sydney Swans after relocating in 1982 that by the mid-1990s it would have been possible to field two competitive teams with all the players that had been poached from the club since 1982.

Once the club culture turned around and player retention was no longer a problem, Sydney became competitive enough to win finals, and eventually premierships.

[Thunder Shaker]

Just looking at our lack of points if we use pick 3 on a non-academy player or a trade, then wish to draft both academy boys. Does anybody know if there’s a cap on the number of points you can go into deficit. We will be many hundreds short even if the boys are selected where expected, let alone if one or both go early.

I have earlier calculated that as it stands we're looking at a deficit of about 500 points, and that was a somewhat conservative calculation. That would be on the order of one spot in the draft per 100 points if we finish around the middle of the ladder next year.

I don't know if there's a cap on points deficits, but having a deficit so huge that we lose all the whole value of our first-round pick would be embarrassing. Even if that did not happen, the AFL would shift the goalposts and find an excuse to punish the Swans, perhaps by disallowing the recruitment. Another reason to avoid a deficit is to avoid gimping our draft next year, a year that is predicted to be a strong draft.

We don't seem to have a lot of players that would attract the interest of other clubs. Papley was discussed earlier in the year as a possible trade target. After he declared his intent to stay, there has been little draft speculation on Swans players. Therefore, it is unlikely we would be actively trading much.

This is why I believe that we may consider splitting our pick 3 for two later first-round picks. If we ended up with picks like 12, 18 and 22, between them those picks would draft Campbell, Gulden and another player. Where the third player is drafted is hard to predict, but we will have three players by early in the second round. (A boatload of compo picks are going to be handed out this year, which would easily push pick 22 out to around pick 27 or so by the time we get to use it.)

[The Big Cat]

It's a concern that's for sure. For us, there are a multitude of issues to consider when we draft, in particular the go home factor. I suspect that if we don't see anyone worth the whole of pick 3, we will split it for 2 late first rounders, use one for a player then use the other for points. If we use 3 in its entirety, I can't see how we won't go into deficit for next year.

That's what worries me too.

Assuming our academy boys are selected at pick 6 and pick 22 respectively then I think we face the following situation:

If we use Pick 3 on a non-academy player or for a trade we forfeit 1752 points.
If we are forced to match a bid for Campbell at pick 6 it will cost us (with 20% discount) 1401 points.
The total of our remaining picks give us only 1285 points made up of 845 (pick 22) plus 246 (pick 52) plus 197 (pick 56) plus 0 (pick 76)
The result is that we are 116 points short of even matching Campbell without even addressing the 648 we need for Gulden!

Where are we going to find 764 points? Or the equivalent of acquiring pick 25. (We won't get that through players like Ronke of Foote)

Can we make up all the difference out of 2021 draft points?

[Auntie.Gerald]

does anyone remember how it panned out for GWS last draft using their pick 4? for a non academy player then taking Green an academy player at pick 10ish ?

[Mr Magoo]

That's what worries me too.

Assuming our academy boys are selected at pick 6 and pick 22 respectively then I think we face the following situation:

If we use Pick 3 on a non-academy player or for a trade we forfeit 1752 points.
If we are forced to match a bid for Campbell at pick 6 it will cost us (with 20% discount) 1401 points.
The total of our remaining picks give us only 1285 points made up of 845 (pick 22) plus 246 (pick 52) plus 197 (pick 56) plus 0 (pick 76)
The result is that we are 116 points short of even matching Campbell without even addressing the 648 we need for Gulden!

Where are we going to find 764 points? Or the equivalent of acquiring pick 25. (We won't get that through players like Ronke of Foote)

Can we make up all the difference out of 2021 draft points?

The answer therefore seems simple - just get Campbell and Gulden and worry about whats left after that. Better not to go into deficit this year if next year the junior talent programme changes to u19 level which then puts many more players in contention which havent been seen this year .

[Markwebbos]

Something does have to give:

Could be splitting pick 3 this year
Or trading / swapping next years first rounder, in which case the deficit comes off our second round pick
There will be clubs lining up to offer us trades for pick 22, which will offer us a lot more points.
And we could potentially swap a future pick for a pick this year too.

[Markwebbos]

does anyone remember how it panned out for GWS last draft using their pick 4? for a non academy player then taking Green an academy player at pick 10ish ?

Their first pick this year is currently 40. But they will have guessed, correctly, they would be gaining some very useful picks when players inevitably leave.

[dimelb]

The answer therefore seems simple - just get Campbell and Gulden and worry about whats left after that. Better not to go into deficit this year if next year the junior talent programme changes to u19 level which then puts many more players in contention which havent been seen this year .

That's the way I'd pick it to start with too.

But I do like the bleeding obvious!

[SwanSand]

Their first pick this year is currently 40. But they will have guessed, correctly, they would be gaining some very useful picks when players inevitably leave.

What about giving Fremantle pick 3 and future 3rd round pick getting Hogan, pick 10 and 2nd round pick?