List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part 3

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 3

Now that our season is over, and news is starting to break - it's time for a fresh thread.

This thread is to discuss all things list management - trades, draft, free agency, delistings and more.
As we are now officially in our off-season, we'll be wanting to keep this thread more strictly on-topic than the previous iterations.
Be respectful. You are allowed to disagree with someone - but play the ball, not the man. Repeat offenders will have their posting rights revoked.

Thanks to Lore once again for this incredibly useful spreadsheet.

2025 KEY DATES
Free Agency Period: Friday, October 3rd - Friday, October 10th
Trade Period: Monday, October 6th - Wednesday, October 15th
AFL Draft: Wednesday, November 19th - Thursday, November 20th

See Also:
2025 Year in Review Rumours & Confirmed Movements 2025 Draft Discussion
​

 

[Joffaboy]

Good. They should learn to manage their SC properly then.

 

[magd2992]

Anyone actually watch the clip of Finey making the statement?

“He will definitely be at Melbourne next year… unless Saints can entice him to stay”

That’s such a ‘backtrack in one sentence’ it’s hilarious. Is it definite or not?

Reckon he stays still.

Finally someone’s said it.

Confused, attention grabbing statement. All you could reasonably take from it is that it’s between Melbourne and St Kilda (that the Dee’s offer is more other clubs supposedly chasing him).

Let this play out. If our offer is in the ballpark he’d be bonkers to leave for Melbourne.

 

[Diehard Saint]

If Windy goes to a basketcase club who spent the year without a CEO, where most of their guns are either 33 years old or a shadow of their former selves (Gawn, May, Petracca, Oliver), and finished below St Kilda the last 2 years....

Will the cheerleaders in this thread still be convinced in the direction of the club, and that we should just "have faith in the list managers?" because "they know what they're doing"?

Asking for a friend.

Maybe.
Are you happy to overpay B grade players - which got us into trouble previously. I mean we’re still paying for Billings.

Maybe.
Because the club don’t rate Windy as highly as he rates himself.

Maybe.
Because you don’t pay 850k to a tagger and we have players we prefer in the midfield now and up and coming. Perhaps the club see more of a future in Boxshall, Garcia, Wilson, Pou, Hall, and let’s not forget NAS.

If Windy rates himself higher than these players and is prepared to choose a “basket case club” - your words, then so be it and good luck to him.

 

[Red White Black]

If Windy goes the mystery mid thing needs to be true.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Good. They should learn to manage their SC properly then.

The salt is hilarious.
The AFL world only love a pathetic Saints outfit.

 

[Joffaboy]

Hilarious if we end up cooking other teams salary caps because they weren’t ready to be forking out $2m in their best talents

Of all the things to critisise, Saints are hurting the competition by working within the narrow confines the AFL has allowed us, I.e, to save salary cap, to try to make the team better, and we are 'hurting' the competition

FMD you couldn't make this shit up.

 

[Remboy]

So us paying players good money hurts the competition but northern academies and third party deals don't?

 

[Dr Spaceman]

"Significantly pleasing to have you at the Dees, Marcus"

Well the Dees are obviously going harder in the Marcus Windhager contest than we are.

 

[gringo2011]

I don’t begrudge the bloke if he is going for an offer he thinks is too hard to turn down.

But at the same token, I don’t see it as good management to match it.

You don't have to match but you need to be with in the same range. Usually you get a -20% stay at home tax or something.

 

[Joffaboy]

G'day, Windy.

Oh you were strong in the contest ( then shanked it to a flank)

 

[Diehard Saint]

So us paying players good money hurts the competition but northern academies and third party deals don't?

Got it in one!

 

[Dr Spaceman]

Says the old fart who, along with his talented team mates, was gifted to Hawthorn at our expense and thus began our slide into irrelevance and an endless struggle to survive, much less succeed.

Suck it up Lethal; we don’t have a lot of options available to us.

 

[Red White Black]

 

[Armitage2Riewoldt]

So us paying players good money hurts the competition but northern academies and third party deals don't?

It's clickbait, listen to the full clip: https://www.3aw.com.au/will-st-kildas-player-investment-payoff-in-2026/

He's calling us disruptors, he's saying we're taking a risk.

He's saying other clubs are gonna have to up their offers to their elite players because of it.

It's nothing really new or interesting imo. But it's a good headline

 

[Diehard Saint]

Maybe.
Are you happy to overpay B grade players - which got us into trouble previously. I mean we’re still paying for Billings.

Maybe.
Because the club don’t rate Windy as highly as he rates himself.

Maybe.
Because you don’t pay 850k to a tagger and we have players we prefer in the midfield now and up and coming. Perhaps the club see more of a future in Boxshall, Garcia, Wilson, Pou, Hall, and let’s not forget NAS.

If Windy rates himself higher than these players and is prepared to choose a “basket case club” - your words, then so be it and good luck to him.

Interested to know what parts, or was it all, you disagreed with gringo2011

 

[gringo2011]

Of all the things to critisise, Saints are hurting the competition by working within the narrow confines the AFL has allowed us, I.e, to save salary cap, to try to make the team better, and we are 'hurting' the competition

FMD you couldn't make this shit up.

I'm not actually a fan of the financial arms race either. Paying guys like TDK top dollar is insane. Its will come back and bite us too at some point. We'll start losing players and end up paying a lot for not much return. We should be getting creative, the top wages are only for absolute stars like Nas, not topping up.

 

[phantom13]

If windy goes can we just not turn into those shitheel supporters that boo guys that played for us. We did it with battle and it remains in poor taste. If windy gets a massive financial offer and leaves because of it then fair play to him. No need for us to be a pack of whinging pricks about it.

 

[Diehard Saint]

If windy goes can we just not turn into those shitheel supporters that boo guys that played for us. We did it with battle and it remains in poor taste. If windy gets a massive financial offer and leaves because of it then fair play to him. No need for us to be a pack of whinging pricks about it.

Unfortunately there are always going to be a few.

 

[akaifu]

You nuffies think that TDK is a bargain but $100k overs is daylight robbery. If we lose players as quickly as we replace them we are in perpetual stasis.

This will be a disaster if we pay top dollar to change the players over for no actual gain. If we lose Nas after 2 years we've just blown another couple of years going nowhere again.

Somehow we just never quite manage to get our shit sorted. So far under Lyon and SOS we've gone backwards every year, if they spend up big and can't move us forward the whole board need to go and FD staff need a review.

No one ever said TDK is a bargain

It just makes sense given the context of our list. A young-ish ruckman who was in AA conversations early in the year before copping injuries recruited free of draft capital and we cough up an extra 600k, which was saved when we overpaid our stars the last few years thus they are underpaid now - which they contractually agreed to

He is a potential game-winning superstar who has been compared to Max Gawn. He has also been dubbed by Max Gawn himself as potentially the next #1 ruckman of the competition - he has never said that about anyone else. It is almost the equivalent of a salary dump from our POV. You people that are against signing him are taking the recruitment of a high-profile player for free for granted as if we can just land a different one for free

Windy, on the other hand, is a worker bee. Fills holes in team structure and plays according to the coach. He is NOT a game changer and has NEVER shown an ability to change the side's fortunes to the extent of 800k+/year. He is NOT the type you pay overs for IMO, especially when you have the likes of Boxshall, Hastie, Travaglia, O'Connell and others vying for best 23 spots who have shown that they can play similar roles

And on your point about it potentially being a disaster - we are giving up at most 2x 2nd rounders & maybe a Windy/Marshall for TDK, JSOS, Ryan, Aleer*, Flanders/mid

What is the upside/cost ratio here do you think? Would you prefer the former or the latter combo? Genuine question

 

[gringo2011]

Heard it all now, Windhager is a better winger than Hill

Hill looks absolutely cooked and Windhager looked excellent on the wing late in the year. I'd say he's a better wingman right now.

 

[SaintsofSteel]

Don't think anyone is getting upset, except for the bedwetters.
So a rival is enticing an opposition player, oh no, never happened before.
We certainly didn't entice TDK or JSOS to join us on big money, nobody has spoken to Ryan, he just decided he would nominate the Saints.
Allen and the Saints haven't been talking to GC all year about a possible Flanders trade.
Yes being facetious, but as you say if anyone is sooking about a player being poached they need to understand the way of the world.
Losing a specific player is a different argument. Basically you can understand this will happen and still be upset because you like the player.

I love how you take the sarcastic high ground, you werent so righteous when Nas looked like he was leaving.

We are building a club that is hoping to contend, we simply cant afford to lose quality players. Everyone understands the club are interested in bringing in other midfielders, but surely we can get it done without losing a quality kid like Windy.

 

[Jade Buddha]

We are paying TDK probably 3 times more than what he should be on, Aleer at least 3 times his value, Jack Silvagni is probably worth around 3/4 of what he's getting. I'd say they are all B graders or below at this point.

It's hard to tell a player that they aren't worth paying market rate when you've gone and paid up for similar level players. We have massive cap space by paying existing players lower rates.

The club has to start paying some dividends. We can't just grab a few new toys to excuse a lack of of progress. If they can't perform after spending up big on targeted players they should be in the gun. They need to be held to account with on field performance. No excuses any more.

An athletic ruck that works at ground level is definitely in the 1 mil range at any club.

 

[Joffaboy]

I'm not actually a fan of the financial arms race either. Paying guys like TDK top dollar is insane. Its will come back and bite us too at some point. We'll start losing players and end up paying a lot for not much return. We should be getting creative, the top wages are only for absolute stars like Nas, not topping up.

You always say this, but never a suggestion how. We don't get FS, we have no access to NGA, so we use the only thing available to us, saving SC.
Easy to calculate that we had 5 mill at least to spend over the SC this year, that is not taking into account spend 105% of the cap allowed after any 95% spend or the money paid to Billings and Crouch.

You say be creative. Well they have been, and they are not finished.
Lose players, clubs gain and lose players all the time.
Really I think you just want us to stand still and not do anything. And you are back on to 'topping up', even after you have said we have drafted well and this was not topping up.
Really you map.out a strategy within the confines and limitations the AFL puts on us.

 

[StCicatriz]

Windy situ feels like Ben McEvoy

7

Ben Mcevoy

Age

36

Ht

200cm

Wt

101kg

Pos.

F/R

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.6

3star

K

4.7

2star

HB

6.9

4star

M

4.2

4star

T

3.0

5star

G

0.4

3star

D

8.5

2star

K

3.9

1star

HB

4.6

3star

M

2.8

3star

T

1.8

3star

G

0.4

3star

D

6.0

2star

K

3.0

1star

HB

3.0

3star

M

3.0

3star

T

1.2

3star

G

0.0

1star

all over again...

who's going to captain the club in 2-3 years time?

also aren't we just doing some circle work with the list management. didnt want battle but now we've offered the same contract pretty much to JSOS, just a year older, not as good and less resilient. to help cover that we are looking at aleek at 600-700k. 1.4m will be tied up in aleek and jsos.

 

[stavro#4]

The hunt for Windhager
Melbourne’s pursuit of Windhager is genuine, but North Melbourne also consider themselves a genuine chance after offering the durable 22-year-old a five-year deal.

The Saints upped their original offer from two to four years recently and are keen to retain him after his good friend Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera re-signed for two years just before the season finished. However, the Demons and Kangaroos’ offers are more attractive.

Melbourne are also reportedly interested in Saints ruckman Max Heath, while they are yet to re-sign Judd McVee, who has interest from other clubs, and free agent and premiership forward Charlie Spargo

9

Charlie Spargo

Age

26

Ht

172cm

Wt

75kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.7

3star

K

6.4

3star

HB

5.3

4star

M

3.5

4star

T

2.7

4star

G

0.6

4star

D

8.0

2star

K

6.0

2star

HB

2.0

1star

M

1.0

1star

T

0.0

1star

G

0.0

1star

D

13.6

4star

K

6.8

3star

HB

6.8

5star

M

4.4

4star

T

2.6

4star

G

1.2

4star

.