List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part V

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 5

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
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[Dr Spaceman]

We should NOT be accepting Cats pick 19 (Will be 25) for Roma

Nowhere near what he is worth, also nowhere near what he is worth to the list as a 2nd ruck/tall who can play fwd

So Cats need to pay up or he sucks it up and stays. Definitely no pressure on us to take 19 like the media want us to

Cats are pursuing him not as depth, but as a vital missing ingredient in their pursuit of another flag.

That in itself makes him worth far more than a late first rounder.

 

[Yawkey way]

Any chance of Stephen May?

I would if I thought he had anything left in the tank.

 

[Pardon me]

200k x 3

Yes, they want a second round pick for a guy who'll be on pretty much a rookie contract

I've got no issue with any player trying to maximise their value in the short space of time that professional sports permits - I've said it multiple times on this forum.

The flip side to that is; players are only worth as much as their output permits or what clubs perceive as their potential future ceiling.

St.Kilda handled the negotiations and comms with the Aleer camp poorly - there's no debate on that, but the negotiations with GWS was pure business.
I think the thing that looks extremely bad is the offer for 900k, its unthinkable to anyone that he's worth that as proven by the GWS offer who know him better than any other club.
Disappointing for Aleer definitely as I'm sure he'd mentally spent half that in his mind.

In the end though I think the right decision was made by the club.

 

[billings2paddy]

Cats are pursuing him not as depth, but as a vital missing ingredient in their pursuit of another flag.

That in itself makes him worth far more than a late first rounder.

Cats clearly need marshall
Wheres the famous mack attack?

 

[The_Steadier]

More chance of Stephen Hawking IMO

Like Pendlebury- he is known for finding plenty of time and space.

 

[The Punter]

Like Pendlebury- he is known for finding plenty of time and space.

Did Hawking come from a basketball background?

 

[jimmytigs]

That caller was another self entitled sook.

It was unbelievable to listen to.

the more i think about it,aside from laughing,it sounded like some prisoner or psychiatric patients once a week phone call allowance

 

[NAS THE GOAT]

200k x 3

Yes, they want a second round pick for a guy who'll be on pretty much a rookie contract

Exactly, they are basically offering him a base minimum wage. Highly valued obviously

 

[luca77]

And both of you spelled Kitschke incorrectly.

Most illuminating that Google doesn't have a single photo of him in Saints colours

Back in the day, we only had so many shots on a roll of film! I'm sure he's in the background of a photo somewhere.

 

[saintmike65]

This bloke is going to play an absolute blinder against us as payback for losing 650k per annum isnt he?

Leek only gets a game if Taylor, Buckley or Himmelberg are out of the side.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

This bloke is going to play an absolute blinder against us as payback for losing 650k per annum isnt he?

All the games of his I saw, when it came to defending it looked like he was blind.

 

[_Maximus_12]

For all of his upside, Leek is still a project player that we had proposed to pay overs based on a limited sample size from 2024.
Unfortunately the more he played, the more his upside diminished and the more his flaws were exposed.
I wouldn’t be upset if he was on our list, but there’s no surprises we cooled given our positional depth and his lack of progress since our initial meeting in 2024.

 

[Cam Shenton]

More chance of Stephen Hawking IMO

Or Ricky May

 

[gubby88]

All the games of his I saw, when it came to defending it looked like he was blind.

i heard his defence was Leek-y

 

[stavro#4]

It would be delicious to see merrett not get traded after sh*tcanning the club he's captain of.

He might be the first player in AFL history to get booed by his own teammates

I just cannot for the life of me see how it benefits Essendon to keep him.

Your captain and best player is 30 and has twerked it for other clubs for 2 years. He has embarrassed the club in the last few weeks and is desperate to go.

By all means set a high price. But retaining him doesn’t show the AFL world how strong a club you are. It shows absolute delusion to not accept where you are at in the cycle and what needs to be done.

I would have scanned clubs lists for the likes of Humphreys Sanders etc and tried to extract 2 of these players out for Merrett and change then begun a huge rebuild

 

[stavro#4]

 

[TheOsprey]

Hindsight says we should have walked away from Aleer when we got JSOS...then we wouldn't be in this predicament!

I reckon the club didn’t want to do it early in case it impacted other things like getting Flanders nomination. Imagine the uncertainty the media would have driven at a key point in our list strategy.

I think that’s why we rushed to get all the trade business done early, didn’t play hard ball with GC over Flanders etc….to get it all done and give Aleer as much notice as possible in the trade window.

The Aleer news broke at the same
time as we completed our last piece of business. No coincidence.

Ruthless but the right approach in a business sense. Would have been much worse to double down on our mistake of taking him on overs.

 

[LazarPoodovic]

Back in the day, we only had so many shots on a roll of film! I'm sure he's in the background of a photo somewhere.

Probably with a black bar over his face

 

[Tommy Wigs]

Someone reported last week the Saints were offering 1.5m guaranteed over 4 years last week + incentives. So essentially the deal was $375k a year which could be up to $700k if he made the AA team amongst other criteria, in which case $700k would be a great deal for a player of that calibre.
A far cry from some reports of up to $900k a year

Yep, more bullshit. No way that it would be up to $700k either. Imagine your list set up so that they could double their money - no way you could run a salary cap like that. “Saints have dropped Nas, King, and TDK for the all important GF. Seems strange”. Just so that we don’t breach the cap

 

[Tommy Wigs]

It’s funny listening to all this crap from Damo about us just accepting basically whatever we can get for Marshall (who’s contracted and a required player).

I remember vividly when we were going after Brad Hill because his young family wanted to come back to Melbourne, the line from Damo at the time was that he was contracted. And that if we wanted to go after him we had to effectively pay overs just to get the deal done. And if we hadn’t it was a terrible look for us.

Don’t see why he’s not saying the same about Geelong, especially after all the carry on about us wining and dining Aleer only to pull out.

Would happily pay someone to dig some of this up. Reply to every tweet involving that campaigner for a decade.

 

[Falchoon]

They won’t be getting their information from St Kilda. Sounds as if Geelong are feeding the media.

I liked it much better when SEN was dominated by Saints supporters.

 

[Linton Street Saint]

I just cannot for the life of me see how it benefits Essendon to keep him.

Your captain and best player is 30 and has twerked it for other clubs for 2 years. He has embarrassed the club in the last few weeks and is desperate to go.

By all means set a high price. But retaining him doesn’t show the AFL world how strong a club you are. It shows absolute delusion to not accept where you are at in the cycle and what needs to be done.

I would have scanned clubs lists for the likes of Humphreys Sanders etc and tried to extract 2 of these players out for Merrett and change then begun a huge rebuild

Still stuck in the past, bring in a new leader start fresh, they're in full rebuild but shit the place up fighting over a captain who has been a long time servant that doesn't want to be there anymore.

Make it make sense.

 

[stavro#4]

Still stuck in the past, bring in a new leader start fresh, they're in full rebuild but shit the place up fighting over a captain who has been a long time servant that doesn't want to be there anymore.

Make it make sense.

Cancerous place.

Build under a few experienced players from other clubs and load up on youth. Place needs a deep clean

 

[sauce_head]

It would be delicious to see merrett not get traded after sh*tcanning the club he's captain of.

He might be the first player in AFL history to get booed by his own teammates

I support Essendon here. Tell the idiot he has to stay and that’s why he has a contract. Then the media can hold the Hawks to account for arriving him at this situation.

Edit: if he wants to sulk around and get dropped to the twos, so be it. But it’s not how these guys operate (Clary aside). Stuff the hawks and their sacrificing others to try and get something cheap. Typical Mitchell, happy to play dirty without any hesitation whatsoever.

 

[Broski]

Let me get my tiny violin out on the way into the office for another 8 hour day probably getting paid less then half he gets next year on his drastically reduced pay from having his contract front loaded.

If it makes you feel better, doesn't the club have only 16 contact hours during the week? Happy to sign a long-term deal, that has been heavily front-ended, and then leave once the pay is more modest. Pony up Geelong, or see you on day one of preseason Rowan.