Trading our first draft pick in the future

[mustang]

Seeing we want to finish top 4 in the next few years as part of our plan if next year or the year after we finish 8th would you go youth in the draft or trade it to get another player into the club to maybe try for another flag. Could be pick 7-10 depending on free agent comp.

 

[VandoHawk]

This is a bit of an ambiguous question because it really depends on who's available and who wants to come to Hawthorn, and what that player is worth.

For example, if a player like Nat Fyfe wanted to come to Hawthorn and we had finished somewhere equal to or below eighth position then we'd probably be more than eager to trade with our first round (and probably second) round pick.

On the flipside, however, I could realistically see a drop like that when the bulk of our midfield superstars do retire and we have to adapt. As such, high draft picks would be influencial in securing high-grade midfielders, and perhaps even a key forward, because generally the most apt talent is available extremely early.

Honestly, when our guns like Mitchell, Hodge, and Burgoyne retire (poor Sewelly) despite our good depth I could possibly see us trading talent to get an even higher draft pick to secure the next generation of leaders at our club. So yeah, if we do get into a form slump (that could happen when our core mids retire and our depth can't adapt to playing without then) the only way we would even consider trading our first round pick is if something our equal or greater value was available, and probably had good leadership skills.

We obviously thought O'Rourke would be a better prospect then the pick we had first round in the draft, so we traded our pick. However, as picks go higher we have a chance to secure another Birchall/Rioli/Lewis with reasonably high first round picks. Actually, I could possibly see us trading to get an even higher pick.

All in all, you would probably go youth unless there was a deal too good to refuse. Of course, you could always look for Free Agents and not even worry about trading picks for players. So yeah, ensuring the next generation of leaders and 'freakish' players is probably a little bit more important to continued success rather than getting a ready-made player for immediate success.

 

[Prudster]

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see us trade our first round pick. The GC/GWS situation seemed to be timed pretty well for us, as they will likely be losing highly talented young players in the next few years, and will probably not be getting true value for them. As we saw with JOR, we can pick up early draft picks with a couple of years of development for late first round picks, and hopefully they can replace our older guys. Maybe add in a free agent midfielder, and suddenly our we still have a fantastic team capable of contending (or pinching a flag if we are not in the best couple of teams), even without a few of Hodge, Mitchell, Hale, Lake, etc.

As long as the retirements are staggered, i think we can trade and get free agents to keep us contending.

 

[Big Hotdog]

I can see Sydney trading their next 10 years worth of of first round picks going on their current recruiting profile.

 

[Ordovician]

For the next four years we will or at least should still have:

Roughy, Lewis, Birchall, Pops, Breust, Gunston, McEvoy, Ceglar, Smith, Hill, Hartung, Shiels, Langford, Wx, Anderson, Frawley, Spangher, Schoey, Stratton, Litherland, Duryea, Suckling,

and for the next couple of years: Hale, Gibson and Rioli

While there are few unproven players on that list and the odd struggler coming back from ACLs, it is still potentially a very strong core. It is in fact too good a group to let rot for want of aggressive pursuit of talent and potential talent from other teams particularly those with far too many good young players courtesy of AFL sanctioned pillaging the draft for a few years.

With a few more young players coming on, and the odd judicious trade and FA coup, we can keep our premiership window open until at least until 2017 i.e. stay in the top four. Given this situation I have no doubt that the club will continue to trade and top up with FAs until at least until that date and depending on how successful they may continue past this point

It takes a long time to re-build a club from the bottom and a lot of clubs either fail e.g. carltank, demons, tigers, or if the can re-build fall at the final hurdles e.g. the saints and dogs. So if you get to the top then it is paramount to do everything in your power to stay there as long as possible to snatch the odd extra elusive flag.

This is given extra urgency by the equalisation tactics introduced to bring successful honourable clubs like Hawthorn to their knees once they have bagged a flag or two, via the "level" playing field of the players salary cap, the football department spending cap and the draft. And let's not mention the AFL's relentless quest to PERVERT the competition via the draw, FA compensation absurdities, and the ridiculous concessions to the new market teams (for tanking) and to Sydney like their player academy.

Remember that flags are bloody hard to come by and that we spent 17 years in the wilderness before 2008. So let's try and extend this run as long as possible and worry about the mess post 2018 when we lose our next wave of stars e.g. Roughy Lewis, Birch etc. Then we can bottom out if necessary and re-build a la 2004.

 

[MightyHawks]

For the next four years we will or at least should still have:

Roughy, Lewis, Birchall, Pops, Breust, Gunston, McEvoy, Ceglar, Smith, Hill, Hartung, Shiels, Langford, Wx, Anderson, Frawley, Spangher, Schoey, Stratton, Litherland, Duryea, Suckling,

and for the next couple of years: Hale, Gibson and Rioli

While there are few unproven players on that list and the odd struggler coming back from ACLs, it is still potentially a very strong core. It is in fact too good a group to let rot for want of aggressive pursuit of talent and potential talent from other teams particularly those with far too many good young players courtesy of AFL sanctioned pillaging the draft for a few years.

With a few more young players coming on, and the odd judicious trade and FA coup, we can keep our premiership window open until at least until 2017 i.e. stay in the top four. Given this situation I have no doubt that the club will continue to trade and top up with FAs until at least until that date and depending on how successful they may continue past this point

It takes a long time to re-build a club from the bottom and a lot of clubs either fail e.g. carltank, demons, tigers, or if the can re-build fall at the final hurdles e.g. the saints and dogs. So if you get to the top then it is paramount to do everything in your power to stay there as long as possible to snatch the odd extra elusive flag.

This is given extra urgency by the equalisation tactics introduced to bring successful honourable clubs like Hawthorn to their knees once they have bagged a flag or two, via the "level" playing field of the players salary cap, the football department spending cap and the draft. And let's not mention the AFL's relentless quest to PERVERT the competition via the draw, FA compensation absurdities, and the ridiculous concessions to the new market teams (for tanking) and to Sydney like their player academy.

Remember that flags are bloody hard to come by and that we spent 17 years in the wilderness before 2008. So let's try and extend this run as long as possible and worry about the mess post 2018 when we lose our next wave of stars e.g. Roughy Lewis, Birch etc. Then we can bottom out if necessary and re-build a la 2004.

Yes I expect some Free Agency topping up in 2015-2018

However if we manage to recruit one good 18-21 year old each year over the next 4 years then we might be able to avoid going off a cliff until 2020 or later

 

[joshuakburnett]

Meh, it's all about development to me.

We haven't gotten steals at any of our picks.

Arguably a lot of our players had unappreciated talents, but it's been their development at Hawthorn that has made them, and our team great.

A massive amount of talent is drafted by all clubs, each year, the differences are in the development.


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[Davo-27]

i think if we finish top 4 we will always try and trade our first pick for an established player, it seems like it is our policy atm and i agree with it, we have picked up some gems by trading our first picks away, eg. Gunston, Burgoyne, McEvoy ect, O'Rourke could be an ok player also, time will tell

 

[Furn2]

If you look at games played there's not much difference between picks around 15 and 45. I think we know this and don't rate picks in the late teens that highly and look to trade them and back ourselves to get good players later in the 30s and 40s.

If we got picks a bit higher eg better than 15 we would probably look to use them unless a good young player was available.

Hopefully future pick trading is allowed next year and we can chase some real quality ready to go youth.

 

[Ordovician]

Meh, it's all about development to me.

We haven't gotten steals at any of our picks.

Arguably a lot of our players had unappreciated talents, but it's been their development at Hawthorn that has made them, and our team great.

A massive amount of talent is drafted by all clubs, each year, the differences are in the development.

???

Stratton, Puopolo, Brad Hill, Smithy and Hartung send their holiday season best wishes.

I think some of our talent identification over the last five or six years with having very poor picks indeed, has been nothing short of superb.

We also can make total balls up of developing players as we have done with Schoey, and both Lowden and Grimley are hardly examples of a great development program. Also we have wasted many good draft picks when we had lots of them to waste, on failures like Little, Dowler, Muston, Thorp, Renouf & Morton, just like many of the worst clubs do today viz. GWS & demons..

Sure our development looks good simply because we have the results on the board.

However, this might be due the following facts:

i. we have had really poor draft picks over the since 2008 due to:

a. ladder position i.e. finishing 1st, 9th, 7th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st and 1st

b. the rorts of the expansion clubs and other drafts rorts like deliberate tanking by filth like GWS and the demons which has been re-enforced by getting obscene FA compensation

c. having to trade whatever good picks we have had to fill the massive holes left by the crumbling edifice of Pelchanism i.e. we have expended almost all of our top picks to trade in stars and key role players: Burgers, Gibson, Hale, Gunston, Lake, McEvoy & O'Rourke, which is not a bad thing in itself if you value winning flags but we have used picks 9, 18, 25, 41, 27, 24, 46, 21, 41, 19, and 40 in acquiring these players, they were probably great value trades in retrospect!

ii. as a result of i. over the period from 2008 onwards the highest picks we had were: 16, 19, 24, 28, 31, 33, 34, 38, 38, 39, 41 etc.

iii. as a result of ii. we have had to make the most of developing what ever we could get with these mediocre selections and try and make the most of picks in the highly speculative range of 45 to 70

iv. as a result of iii. we have given most of our draftees 4 or 5 years to prove themselves including those who did not make the grade e.g. Dowler, Muston, Morton, Savage, Grimley, Lowden (6 years), & Hallahan.

v. the policy of iv. was the only practical approach the club could adopt as the only alternative was to turn these type of players more quickly which meant having to use even more highly speculative picks post pick 70 or even more rookie elevations, just to keep our senior list numbers up, instead we have used the rookie list judiciously for higher turnover and project players whilst giving many of the promising rookies several years to prove themselves as well, first as rookies and later on the senior list

vi. due to v. out of pure necessity we have invested far more development years into players picked up post first round than any of the other clubs have done, and given this investment in longer term development it will by necessity, occasionally pay off with players like Duryea, Suckling, Bruest, Langford and Litherland who have taken several years to bloom.

The simple fact that we are effectively forced to spend the extra years giving these later picks and rookies 4 or 5 years to develop and have reaped some significant rewards from this approach may make our development system look superior to what it actually is.

In contrast to this approach I can only think of three players drafted post 2008 as kids that were given only two or three year to prove themselves at the hawks, namely, Williams, Lisle and Kelly.

Perhaps our development is not that fantastic but it may be due to a combination of elite level talent identification for later round players, giving most of our draftees and rookies players a long time to develop, and a dash of good old fashioned luck.

 

[joshuakburnett]

Ordovician, Great post!

I stand by not claiming those players as steals, on their performances at the time, and would suggest they would not have performed nearly as well at any other club. Their output today, is phenomenal, largely I think for the reasons listed by you above,

and also because they have had very clear roles and objectives, and could develop them in a successful team.

Looking at the failures/busts we've had with picks, perhaps we are in a perfect storm of elite older players, judicious developing/drafting/trading for needs, and giving players that most crucial thing, time to develop.


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[mustang]

With all the higher draft picks players we have in the side in the next few years when the Hodge,Mitchell and co have gone. And they are the ones carrying the side we will side how good they are.

 

[Pessimistic]

Hodge Mitch and Burgoyne, Lake too can all impose on games and this will be taken up to a certain extent by Rough, lewis and Birchall will step up once they retire.

However Hodge Mitch and Brown showed this early in their career.

Looking at it so far, Bruest, Langford, anderson and Rioli have shown that, and Hill, Gunston can do that without seeming physical.

 

[Ordovician]

Ordovician, Great post!
I stand by not claiming those players as steals, on their performances at the time, and would suggest they would not have performed nearly as well at any other club. Their output today, is phenomenal, largely I think for the reasons listed by you above,

and also because they have had very clear roles and objectives, and could develop them in a successful team.

I think the bolded part is the crux of the matter.

It is just so easy, relatively if not necessarily absolutely, to bring kids into a winning team and give them limited but specific game objectives. This gives them a very sharp focus, they have the support and on field instruction from the best in the game, and they don't have to worry so much about team performance provided that they play their role as the senior players have that in hand. Contrast that to the demons or giants that have a bunch kids running around not really knowing what they are doing, with no on field leadership and facing a flogging every week.

Looking at the failures/busts we've had with picks, perhaps we are in a perfect storm of elite older players, judicious developing/drafting/trading for needs, and giving players that most crucial thing, time to develop.

If that is the case, and it is quite likely, then when we lose these elite older players who will replace them or more correctly their output?

That is the critical issue.

At the moment I think we have Lake reasonably well covered with Frawley on board but we have no obvious successors for Hodge, Mitchell and Burgoyne.

The problem with replacing those three players is that:

i. they have vast experience, all of them are +250 game players and three time premiership players with a solid experience

ii. they realise that their careers are coming to an end and are driven to achieve the most from what ever is left to them

iii. they are still match winners

iv. they provide exemplary on field leadership by example and Hodge is effectively an on field coach

That is an awful lot to replace and if we are blessed we might find some players who can win the possessions and impact the contests like these three, but the intangibles like the leadership of Hodge and the match winning brilliance of a Burgoyne seem irreplaceable.

 

[Pessimistic]

Burgoyne played every game, Hodge and Mitch cut up among the best in IR. all had an excellent GF

Lewis Birchall Rough will be the mr fixits after that

Further on, Langford, Anderson, Cyril. Can impose as the old guys did as youngsters. Also Gunston, Hill can do the same without apearing overly physical

Imtalking influencers not skills here