List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part IV

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 4

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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[Linton Street Saint]

Jeez, didn't expect to see that statement from the manager. The fact that he's saying Aleer is livid at the club suggests the move really is dead.

I do not like this at all.

Makes me think SDK is happening and that this wasn't expected, but I dont think we should lead players this far and then blue ball them. Aleer has put his neck on the line, possibly severed relationships at GWS and has been given 5 days to make a life changing decision.

This isn't tough, this isn't ruthless, this isn't shrewd. This is a dog act. Hopefully we have a good reason for being a dog, I'm not sure if SDK is a good enough player to justify this.

Has taken a bit of gloss off of what should be a pretty good couple of days.

Im honestly hoping we're just playing GWS and Aleer and his manager are in on the act, but I'm doubtful.

That's quite the moral high ground

 

[bird_man]

Yes and also let's be honest here we have completely ****ed Aleer around. Is it the best thing for us? Yes probably but let's not act as if this is normal, we've completely screwed him over.

Yep, should have done it as soon as we landed SOS

 

[Milanista28]

 

[BrutThough]

Why doesnt GWS have to take any responsibility for not doing more to get the trade done?

It takes 2 clubs to do a deal and 2 clubs stuffing up for negotiations to break down to this degree.

 

[StCicatriz]

cant be about trade value as you'd be walking him to the PSD

its about list spots and list dynamic. that tells me its all about SDK. which again i think is a bad move for marshall.

i'd rather keep marshall and bring in aleer through the PSD

if its not list spots. it means its cap related.

 

[JG22]

probably because hes been blind sided

true lol

 

[BrutThough]

Didn't realise we were the first team to ever back out of a negotiation.

Crickets when Melbourne did it earlier this week.

 

[MrFoster]

Jeez, didn't expect to see that statement from the manager. The fact that he's saying Aleer is livid at the club suggests the move really is dead.

I do not like this at all.

Makes me think SDK is happening and that this wasn't expected, but I dont think we should lead players this far and then blue ball them. Aleer has put his neck on the line, possibly severed relationships at GWS and has been given 5 days to make a life changing decision.

This isn't tough, this isn't ruthless, this isn't shrewd. This is a dog act. Hopefully we have a good reason for being a dog, I'm not sure if SDK is a good enough player to justify this.

Has taken a bit of gloss off of what should be a pretty good couple of days.

Im honestly hoping we're just playing GWS and Aleer and his manager are in on the act, but I'm doubtful.

Come on, AFL is a business these days and everyone knows this. And business deals fall over all the time, due to disagreement in price, terms, another better deal show up. To blast a club on national TV because your reserve level player is not getting a transfer is actually embarrassing. Battle said yes to us, then moved to Hawthorn the next day. Life goes on, everyone is self interested, and our interest should be what's best for the St Kilda football club. The club did nothing wrong (maybe we could have called him and told him our priorities have changed, but this is before we knew players would be falling over to join us this trade period. Anyway, I digress, we made a business decision to not pursue this deal, it's not good for Aleer as he misses out on a much better salary and first team opportunity, but it's not like he is now going to pack shelves at Coles, he will stay play at GWS, just on a modest salary which is fair for his output so far.

 

[saint66au]

??

Flanders occurred. When we were courting Aleer he wasnt part of the equation IM certain

 

[saintmike65]

Maybe SDK is happening now that we moved away from Aleer? Marshall for SDK + a 2nd rounder sounds fair to me.

Marshall staying it seems

 

[Saintscomemarchingin]

We're expecting to make finals next year, no?

Asking for a pick likely to be in the mid 30s for a 24 year key position player who was good enough to play in a final two weeks ago is not an insult by any stretch of the imagination.

Once you're in the 30s, you're more likely to draft a bust than a starting player.

He was in their starting 22, coz Buckley was out injured.
A depth player who was likely to be that with us also.
We got Jsos late & realised late, that we have the backline covered.
Good move
Get someone in who is more of a need & possibly better.

 

[Hayes4PM]

Aleer’s manager with a Trump-like tweet.

“Clubs have rung me and said ‘it’s a disgrace, what have they done?’. They’re all saying it “it’s a disgrace”. This has to be the worst back out of a deal in the history of deals!”

 

[_Maximus_12]

I don’t give a flying **** about what Aleer, his manager, the media or these whinging clubs think.
The goal for our trade period bring in as much talent as possible to improve St Kilda. Not keep the world happy.

 

[LongParker]

A few scenarios in the Aleer trade. Maybe GWS wanted more then a 2nd rounder. After all we offered him close to $800 grand a year by all reports. That probably warrants an ended of first rd pick if a free agent!

Silvagni was not initially one of our targets, he came to us. That probably made Aleer not a huge need then!

Extending Wilkie was a must Saint for life, that money had to come from somewhere.
This had to happen!

If the 3 first picks offered to the Blues for Curnow is true. Then either Cats have pulled out of Chasing Marshall they did offer Pick 19 which we declined. Or Maybe the 2 clubs have agreed on a SDK for Marshall trade!

Or Maybe just maybe we have something else in the pipeline! Let's what and see
At least there talking about us!

 

[snails13]

From Geelong board:

From a very very reliable source.

We have offered:

3 first rounders for Curnow: and

SDK for Marshall



Take it with a grain of salt

I think that is realistic both( Aleer and Curnow)moves have come within an few hours of each other

 

[Armitage2Riewoldt]

If SDK just coincidentally became available at the same time as Geelong offering 3 firsts for Curnow and us backing out of Aleer...so be it.

If not, strange timing.

 

[CHBench]

Yes and also let's be honest here we have completely ****ed Aleer around. Is it the best thing for us? Yes probably but let's not act as if this is normal, we've completely screwed him over.

The thing that doesn't sit well with me is we supposedly gave assurances to Leek and his mgmt when we surprised everyone w/ Silvagni. We could've pulled out then, and didn't. But something has obviously changed in the background, it sucks for him but that's life? He'll find a contract that's closer to this actual value, too many clubs needing defenders and he's too good not to be taken. Worse things happening in teh world

 

[saint66au]

Jeez, didn't expect to see that statement from the manager. The fact that he's saying Aleer is livid at the club suggests the move really is dead.

I do not like this at all.

Makes me think SDK is happening and that this wasn't expected, but I dont think we should lead players this far and then blue ball them. Aleer has put his neck on the line, possibly severed relationships at GWS and has been given 5 days to make a life changing decision.

This isn't tough, this isn't ruthless, this isn't shrewd. This is a dog act. Hopefully we have a good reason for being a dog, I'm not sure if SDK is a good enough player to justify this.

Has taken a bit of gloss off of what should be a pretty good couple of days.

Im honestly hoping we're just playing GWS and Aleer and his manager are in on the act, but I'm doubtful.

If Leek did all those things before a contract was signed, thats on him not us. GWS wanted overs and we didnt want to go there. is that on us?

His manager is grumpy cos his cut just took a haircut

SDK is a figment of fans overactive imaginations unless someone wants to show me otherwise

 

[projectv]

We either keep Marshall now or get some deal involving SDK and some future swaps.

It's a win-win for us.

 

[phantom13]

I’m a little tempered on the Aleer thing.

I really can’t understand blind defense of it, presumably we did our due diligence and imo if you court a player and get them to nominate you you kinda have to get the deal done (unless the incumbent club is being completely unreasonable). There is no way to imply that in the current player market this is a good look.

Having said that, we clearly don’t think he’s gonna be the right player for us moving forward, so I’d rather we back out than do it just cause we’re suppose to.

We probably just should have managed the comms better

 

[phantom13]

If Leek did all those things before a contract was signed, thats on him not us. GWS wanted overs and we didnt want to go there. is that on us?

His manager is grumpy cos his cut just took a haircut

SDK is a figment of fans overactive imaginations unless someone wants to show me otherwise

Gws might have asked for overs but there’s a week to go. We haven’t said “nah, we’ve got work to do” we’ve gone “**** you all were out”.

It’s a bad look however you wanna spin it, by all means saints first etc. but this is a pretty rare occurrence to happen like this

 

[snails13]

Do we actually want SDK? He hasn't quite set the world on fire in recent times.

Neither had Aleer

 

[stavro#4]

People need to stop claiming the recruitment of Silvagni had anything to do with this.

He committed to us prior to the trade period. If it impacted Aleer, we had time to tell him.

 

[MrFoster]

Yep, should have done it as soon as we landed SOS

But maybe we didn't know SDK would happen then.

 

[projectv]

People need to stop claiming the recruitment of Silvagni had anything to do with this.

He committed to us prior to the trade period. If it impacted Aleer, we had time to tell him.

Something has changed since Gubby was interviewed yesterday and said Aleer was nearly done.

It has to be we're into another player and that we are very confident we'll get them.