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
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[gringo2011]

I still laugh at this being the reason he bailed. Fancy wanting to hang around with the WAGs instead of your kids. That is Hawthorn tho, its the mentality when you look at the gen z core and the coach who thinks he is still 21. Good luck to them

The Hawks integrate families into the club. It's selling itself as more than a work place and it gives the benefit of a support network. Families of coaches and players sacrifice a heap. Making them feel part of something too is absolutely smart operating.

Young guys tend to join together to form little social cliques but if the older guys with kids just leave the club and head home, at that point it's just a workplace.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

Apparently according to 7News the "Fallout to Saints' big-money recruiting strategy continues"

St Kilda fallout explodes as under-contract star meets Cats coach

Geelong are threatening to make the Saints pay for splashing the cash on rival players.

7news.com.au

Excuse me but what fallout? and how is it continuing? Haven't heard of a single player come out and request a trade yet.

I wasn’t previously worried about the trade fallout, but if it’s exploding well that’s another matter

 

[CursingFijian]

Great post

Where are you getting all these stats from? I know footywire has a good player comparison option.

Fiji Bureau of Statistics.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

The Hawks integrate families into the club. It's selling itself as more than a work place and it gives the benefit of a support network. Families of coaches and players sacrifice a heap. Making them feel part of something too is absolutely smart operating.

Well I suppose it’s a change from getting rid of the kids before they’re born.

 

[Minga]

Ok mate.

Cmon guys do we need to post the Wilkie video again where he is going on about how much he loves the club that was UPLOADED LAST WEEK.

 

[thekizzler]

This ARMOOO better be full of shit.....

Speaking of David Armitage, was thinking about this the other day.

He was literally a one-season wonder at the elite level.

That 2015 year was incredible, but aside from that, was only really a solid citizen

The gap between that season and his next best, is very large.

Which other players, either at St Kilda or elsewhere, fits that mould?

 

[gringo2011]

I think you have to look at each deal individually.

Dan Butler we got for a packet of chips, and he's played 106 games and been solid. Made an AA40. And if his body's right, might play 50 more. He's only 29.

The Howard/Ryder trade gets my tick. Complex pick swap but I was OK with it. Like Butler, Howard might have a couple more decent years in him.

Hill was a bad deal and I've been complaining about it for 6 years. I probably should stop... the missed opportunity to draft Pickett, Bergman etc was a disaster in hindsight.

Jones is the closest to 50/50.

A mixed bag really.

We gave a up a group of GOPs to get back a group of GOPs too. It also should have been a point where the bad moves of the past bit us and forced us to load up via drafting. Staying down in our natural point in the cycle would have meant we were bearing fruit like Adelaide, Hawks and Freo are now. They were all clubs in that bottom half of the ladder around that time that did the build the slow steady way. I think we too scared to tell the fans that we'd blown the second consecutive build and went for a sugar hit.

 

[phantom13]

See it as an extension on the NAS stuff

Decent player. For free.

Don’t agree but fair enough.

 

[ScrappyDo]

This is mostly true. We are topping hard before showing results so are paying huge contracts for good but not exceptional players. Adelaide and Hawks did the dame thing but off a better form base so got players excited to join them on less coin.

You only get one chance at these high priced ring ins because their massive contracts limit future moves. The foundation work is seriously better than last time and the drafting by Toce and now Dalrymple is AFL standard.

Honestly, besides the TDK contract l don't believe they're breaking the bank on any of these signings. Whilst it's speculation the example of Jsos being provided a progressively reducing front loaded salary takes the average figure from 850k to 750k which goes form a bit too much to around reasonable. And of course the media claim 850k x 4 year deal to get more clicks.
I'm completely over discussing salaries and contracts now because it's been shown time and time again that the reports are usually bull crap.

 

[The Punter]

I agree with this Punter.
However, I’m interested in your thoughts if the inclusion of Ryan generates more scoreboard pressure?
In this hypothetical do we still rate Butlers defensive game higher than Ryan’s offensive?

I'm in the minority on one aspect: I think we've turned the corner offensively. Despite winning two fewer games in 2025 than 2024, and four fewer compared to 2023, this was the highest scoring season we've had since Ross returned. The only Ratten season this good for scoring was 2020.

So the worry for me on Ryan coming in and replacing a Hall or some other young improving non-KP forward. If he was replacing Butler (in style) and doing it well, I'd have no complaints.

And this worries me less than:

TDK - we obviously want to play two ruckmen
Silvagni, Aleer: gives Tauru more time to properly develop (I'm not as excited as others about him yet, but there is plenty to really like)
Many midfielders of trade week: conventional wisdom is you need thousands of them

I know we all have that one name the club has been connected to that is the one too far, and for me it is Ryan because I think the forward line is developing nicely, and I'm not sure he does Butler's role (which is the glaring need IMO).

 

[bird_man]

4 X 700k seems like a lot for guy that would not be playing if not for injuries at the Giants.

I also can't see how he could be guaranteed a game at St Kilda.

 

[gringo2011]

Speaking of David Armitage, was thinking about this the other day.

He was literally a one-season wonder at the elite level.

That 2015 year was incredible, but aside from that, was only really a solid citizen

The gap between that season and his next best, is very large.

Which other player, either at St Kilda or elsewhere, fits that mould?

His back killed his career.

 

[CursingFijian]

Armoooo i see you are claiming Wilkie is off to the dogs.

Care to share.

This would be an unmitigated disaster.

Whew! Lucky we got Aleer.

 

[BrutThough]

4 X 700k seems like a lot for guy that would not be playing if not for injuries at the Giants.

I also can't see how he could be guaranteed a game at St Kilda.

It was 600k plus incentives when Tim Watson spoke directly to the club a month back.

 

[bird_man]

Speaking of David Armitage, was thinking about this the other day.

He was literally a one-season wonder at the elite level.

That 2015 year was incredible, but aside from that, was only really a solid citizen

The gap between that season and his next best, is very large.

Which other player, either at St Kilda or elsewhere, fits that mould?

Jason Heatley

 

[thekizzler]

His back killed his career.

I know.

This isn't a go at Armitage.

But the initial question still stands.

 

[ScrappyDo]

St Kilda will almost certainly not have the funds to get a top free agent in 2 years if we're top 4 (assuming Nas re-signs) now that we've locked in this massive TDK contract. Because being top 4 would mean we've succeeded- and many of our players are playing well and need new contracts.

Nas and TDK would be among the highest paid players in the comp in 2028. You can't have a 3rd guy also being one of the highest paid!

Hall and Wilkie will need new deals.

Pou- if he has a break-out year in 2026 will demand a big contract from 2027.

St Kilda has gone all-in right now. Chips on the table. We've made our choice and it was TDK. The ship has probably sailed looking for other big FAs for the foreseeable future.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. All contending teams have a maxed cap which is why they often shed some big contracts at the time. If we're in that position with roughly the current list it would generally mean that we've developed top line players.

 

[Moquo]

Speaking of David Armitage, was thinking about this the other day.

He was literally a one-season wonder at the elite level.

That 2015 year was incredible, but aside from that, was only really a solid citizen

The gap between that season and his next best, is very large.

Which other players, either at St Kilda or elsewhere, fits that mould?

Dean Greig?

 

[PJays]

Speaking of David Armitage, was thinking about this the other day.

He was literally a one-season wonder at the elite level.

Not too different to other players who were cut down by injuries in their primes.

Jake Carlisle, Dylan Roberton, Brad Crouch. All playing great footy then injuries ended it for them. (Or heart problems!)

 

[gringo2011]

I always thought JB would do quite well as a Harry Sheezel distributor off the half-back line.

He’s a little bruise free but he’s got a decent grab and very good skills.

Yeah, he's a bit neurotic and risk averse IMO. Probably not the best fit off HB. Probably as a wing man he could have made it. Moving to Melbourne was a bad move. He probably could have revived is career at the right club.

 

[PJays]

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. All contending teams have a maxed cap which is why they often shed some big contracts at the time. If we're in that position with roughly the current list it would generally mean that we've developed top line players.

It's a bad thing if we want to re-sign young players but they get squeezed out and look elsewhere because we've allocated 6 or 7% of the cap to TDK.

 

[akaifu]

I'm not sure if anyone has brought this up, but that 2013 offseason was not a top up. We brought in two relatively young players who we thought would be very good for a decade (Bruce and Longer), and Delaney was always a role player. Savage came as the steak knives in the McEvoy deal - we got Savage and picks 18 and 19-ish. It wasn't the top ups which were the problem that year, it was that our plan to hit the draft hard with three top 20 picks only yielded Billings, Acres and Dunstan.

Why would they bring it up if it doesn't suit their St Kilda-bashing narrative?

There is so much context missing from that graphic its scary

 

[beside the seaside]

Pretty sure Armooo was taking the piss out of Dogs supporters.

 

[gringo2011]

Agreed.

But Flanders made the jump and provided an elite midfielders season - the question is whether windy can

SF never had an elite midfield season. His best season was HB with runs on ball. It remains to be seen how he goes as a mid full time. Windhager doesn't have to be an inside mid. His value is probably more as a wing HB who can play as a hard tag or a free wheeling runner.

Normally outside players are harder to find than coal face mids. We didn't draft any for 10 years so think that they are elusive.

 

[Miha]

Pretty sure Armooo was taking the piss out of Dogs supporters.

GONE