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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[Flandersss]

I’m in the camp of wanting Garcia/Phillipou/Hall pushing Macrae out of first choice midfield rotations

Good to have as depth/experience though

 

[Sully111]

John Ralph is a piece of shit.

 

[ScrappyDo]

I wish tony74 would feed us chooks just a little more re: his cryptic comment about the Aleer deal falling over.

It just looked like very poor process management to me and next time the club called to try and upsell me something I was planning to give them a bit of s**t about it since it left me a bit bemused at what was otherwise a great trade period.

I'm not really interested in the drama part of it (if there even is one) but more the club looks to have acted pretty unprofessionally and if there's some context to mitigate that I wouldn't mind knowing.

Here's my take. The Cats gave an indication of their position on Marshall then left to pursue Curnow. At that point SOS/Gub realised Marshall was probably 90% staying which made Aleer surplus to needs. Jsos had already made Aleer surplus but if Marshall left we'd want another tall to replace him, ie Hammer forward.
SOS/Gub/Ross at that point probably made the decision that the cats can GAGF which is why even when they offered that future 1st plus extras they still said GAGF.
I reckon if the cats had offered the same first up it might have got done, or maybe it was SDK or nothing.

 

[Leigh58]

Can cop the look if it means we don’t have to pay someone we don’t really need a lot of money over many years.

You can argue that the long “courtship” of Aleer was where we really stuffed up, however I’m glad we didn’t push ahead just to save our image.

There’s far too much at stake with limited list sizes.

I personally don't care about our image being good or bad. If we win the flag our image is good. If we miss out our image is probably bad.
IMO the best football team is what matters. Need to be firm and realistic; it's not a popularity contest.
Well done to the Saints!

 

[ScrappyDo]

I’m in the camp of wanting Garcia/Phillipou/Hall pushing Macrae out of first choice midfield rotations

Good to have as depth/experience though

That won't happen till 2027. MacLobster too good.

 

[Linton Street Saint]

If we are going to be a good to very good team this year we need players to go past Macrae this year. Started last year as an AA smokey and ended with a whimper. Won't be shocked if he finds himself in the VFL this year.

Yeah imagine puncturing a lung, being the no.1 tagged every week in a one paced midfield and have your output drop.

Weird.

 

[triggering bro]

Dard Ball Get triggering bro

Strong name change

 

[Diehard Saint]

There’s also some hypocrisy there.i thought ‘We don’t trade contracted players’

…..unless it’s to the benefit of the club.

Sad as it is, and I am sad about it, Steele not being there allows our youngsters more game time and we need this to happen.

People would have been shouting about how disrespectful it is to drop your ex -captain to the seconds regularly. Remember what happened when he was sub, once?

I actually think this was a respectful way to let him end his career. Playing as the main mid at a new team and an extra year on his contract, rather than demoted to VFL, which would have happened. I really hope he does well.

I think it’s pretty difficult to get your head around this type of thing, but if we want to be a professional outfit we have to make these types of decisions.

Was one of my favourites - just check out my avatar.

 

[Diehard Saint]

"No more excuses", like we're playing video games against a computer or something.
i mean you know there are 17 other clubs trying to do the same right?

The current premiers have gotten 2 great free agents, + a top 3 draft pick player.
GCS have gotten Petracca, and 2 more top 5 draft talents this year, with the guns they already have
Sydney have picked up charlie curnow, while giving up their f1's which dont matter cause they get academy talent as well

And lets not forget that he most likely would have been playing VFL or playing mids or half forward when there were injuries. You really want a bloke on 700k playing VFL or a backup? Whats more embarassing for him as a player, getting dropped or traded to a team that needs him to prolong his career?

I love Steele, hope to see him back at the club as a coach but the equivalence of cutting him only being okay if we win a flag is petulant. Would you have been okay with not winning a flag if we had kept him.

Good post. Spot on.

And you can add unforseeable injuries to that.

 

[SG34]

The idea that we've suddenly shunted him out the door is so far off the mark...

..the idea that he wouldn't be picked is off the mark.
The idea that he wouldn't be doing his onball role was definitely discussed.

 

[SG34]

I think the actual statement was that he wouldn’t be a starting mid. With NAS, Macrae and Flanders that’s not unreasonable.

!00%
Agree

 

[gringo2011]

Strong name change

Hope he isn't the first of our new whipping boys.

 

[gringo2011]

..the idea that he wouldn't be picked is off the mark.
The idea that he wouldn't be doing his onball role was definitely discussed.

Probably a bit like Membrey, he would be too good to leave out but then Sharman is playing at Sandy if he is in the 22 or Hall doesn't get a run. Sometimes you have to take the safety net away.

 

[Significant]

Here's my take. The Cats gave an indication of their position on Marshall then left to pursue Curnow. At that point SOS/Gub realised Marshall was probably 90% staying which made Aleer surplus to needs. Jsos had already made Aleer surplus but if Marshall left we'd want another tall to replace him, ie Hammer forward.
SOS/Gub/Ross at that point probably made the decision that the cats can GAGF which is why even when they offered that future 1st plus extras they still said GAGF.
I reckon if the cats had offered the same first up it might have got done, or maybe it was SDK or nothing.

100% - the Aleer matter is connected completely to the shift in position to retain Marshall. Read into Ross and Carl's comments - that's the mess of trade week, a lot of different information coming at you all at once. Have to stay flexible to what is being presented to you.

 

[thekizzler]

I wish tony74 would feed us chooks just a little more re: his cryptic comment about the Aleer deal falling over.

It just looked like very poor process management to me and next time the club called to try and upsell me something I was planning to give them a bit of s**t about it since it left me a bit bemused at what was otherwise a great trade period.

I'm not really interested in the drama part of it (if there even is one) but more the club looks to have acted pretty unprofessionally and if there's some context to mitigate that I wouldn't mind knowing.

What would you say exactly?

 

[SG34]

Probably a bit like Membrey, he would be too good to leave out but then Sharman is playing at Sandy if he is in the 22 or Hall doesn't get a run. Sometimes you have to take the safety net away.

Wait ! Wait!
Steelo said he was prepared to accept all that! And still wanted to stay! What more could a club ask for from a player?

It seems simple now to my peanut brain. Ross wanted him out. That's all.

We are giving him to Melbourne and paying a chunk of his salary, but if Ross wants it, so be it. I'm backing Ross. I can't see five better St Kilda midfielders based on output so far. On potential - sure, the sky is the limit. Why not?

 

[bergholt]

"No more excuses", like we're playing video games against a computer or something.
i mean you know there are 17 other clubs trying to do the same right?

The current premiers have gotten 2 great free agents, + a top 3 draft pick player.
GCS have gotten Petracca, and 2 more top 5 draft talents this year, with the guns they already have
Sydney have picked up charlie curnow, while giving up their f1's which dont matter cause they get academy talent as well

And lets not forget that he most likely would have been playing VFL or playing mids or half forward when there were injuries. You really want a bloke on 700k playing VFL or a backup? Whats more embarassing for him as a player, getting dropped or traded to a team that needs him to prolong his career?

I love Steele, hope to see him back at the club as a coach but the equivalence of cutting him only being okay if we win a flag is petulant. Would you have been okay with not winning a flag if we had kept him.

People say "no more excuses" like it means something but it really doesn't.

 

[TheNewEnsign]

What would you say exactly?

That it wasn't a good look and came across as unprofessional? I'm not warming up the microwave over here or anything.

 

[Diehard Saint]

We were already a poor tackling team, just got worse.

We’re not going to need to tackle.
With TDK we’re going to get the ball first…..

 

[Rogue Warrior]

Re: next years midfield I suspect McCrae is still first choice. He seems to have a great knack to get first hands and feed it out. He should still generate good clearance numbers. Particularly with dynamic players around him I believe he’ll play an important role. + his kicking is very tidy

 

[joydivision22]

Most existing time of the year is now upon us gentlemen and ladies.

Predicting new jumper numbers

My first take

3. Hall (earned this big time)
9. Flanders (like Boxshall too but there will be other good numbers soon for him)
15. Silvagni (mates with Stocker?) highest left and he ain’t getting higgo’s !
21. TDK (next to Roma 19 would be nice in the locker room)
27. Ryan

Other guys gunning for an upward switch
Boxshall - 38
Garcia - 34
Caminiti - 47! Although I love his number

Any others ? Willo maybe but 22 a GREAT number my fav clearly back in 2012 when I made this account

 

[D2D3]

I think the actual statement was that he wouldn’t be a starting mid. With NAS, Macrae and Flanders that’s not unreasonable.

This highlights the problem with moving on Steele to be tbh. This is still a hopeful starting midfield mix.

Flanders and Nas have still played a lot of their best football at half back and have played 0 games together. Add to that Macrae and Flanders have both had recent injury concerns. And all our back ups to this mix, namely Windhager, Garcia, Pou and Boxshall are all still speculative/injury prone themselves.

We also aren’t improving our list by moving on Steele, we got a future third for him.

The move is to reminiscent of the Membery move from last year for me.

Move on a bloke who still has good footy left in him for nothing because someone should be able to step up and take his place instead of seeing if the kid actually earns it first. Don’t rate the move at all. We’re putting aside our hearts but not even actually gaining anything for it.

 

[crasha301]

Trading dal Santo and stuv hurt, steele not so much for me.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Reading the Dees “welcome” to Steele thread, I’m actually devastated we’ve done this to him.

What a pack of w*nkers. Sorry Steeley.

 

[Saintscomemarchingin]

Yeah he's not the first for that to happen to though. Never got going.

Seems like your writing him off