List Mgmt. "Dynamic Shaping." The new List Management.

[sammm]

Problem is the draft is still compromised, just in a different way. Look at the recent article by Cal Twomey (https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-09-05/will-the-2020-draft-be-the-most-compromised-in-history) - of the 48 players in the recent U/17 All-Stars game, 17 are already tied to clubs through father-sons, Next Generation Academy picks or northern Academies.

And how many are tied to the Saints? Zero.

For whatever the reason, unfortunately that's been the case

 

[The Enemy Within]

Blind Freddy could see Warpol could play GF capt, Vic country capt so he had the runs on the board, just shows drafting for needs is what gets you undone. Draft the best available it’s that simple.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[gringo2011]

I think we agree that both teams started by drafting and have switched to maintain competitive.

Given the way FA has panned out, it was the right way to go. Also, staying competitive helps attract better players.

Difference being as I see it...

Firstly, they better managed their cap, when we did not. As a result they were better able to leverage their existing draft core to stay competitive.

We on the other hand did not. So we had to trade out good players to balance out cap, and could not trade in specific types to keep us going.

Secondly, their sustained success meant that didn't have to draft as much during compromised drafts.

We went to the well at the worst possible time and squandered our opportunity.

In hindsight, if we didn't screw our cap and held on to BJ, Ben and Dal, things might have been different IMO.

We too could have traded our first picks for good players and have the cap space to accommodate them.

Pelchens plan harked back to early 2000s strategy that Hawks used to accumulate picks. That plan was obsolete, but likely necessary due to our cap situation.

Irrespective of him being the right or wrong person, he was basically thrown into the ring with one hand tied behind his back (salary cap) and his bootlaces tied together (compromised draft).

With the calibre of champions we still had post Lyon, had we stayed mid table we may have attracted some decent players, but the key would have been to redraw contracts with them and an acceptable pay cut.

Our decisions and poor management means we had basically had to wind back to 2001 and start again.

The cap is an excuse, we could have lost one or as you said redrawn a couple of contracts. We got played by Pelchen.

 

[hayes]

Have to nail your draft picks first and foremost. Has always been the case and always will be and with no priority picks it makes it even more important.

You build a team through the draft first then when you look like contending that’s when multiple players from other clubs come. We’ve simply just had too many misses with our picks. Doesn’t matter what the excuses are the end result is nought at the end of the day. Getting nothing from pick 1 is just a killer doesn’t matter what the reasons are.

I can’t think of a recent premiership team that hasn’t drafted super well to start off with.

WC - Gaff, Shuey, Sheed, Darling, Kennedy, McGovern, Rioli, Ryan etc

Richmond - Dusty, Cotchin, Riewoldt, Rance, Lambert etc

Dogs - ridiculously good drafting I could go on and on. Bont, Macrae, Stringer, Johannisen, now Dunkley.

Hawks - Mitchell, Lewis, Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Rioli, Breust

Our rebuild plan to pick a spine first and rely on a FA mid to come was a poor strategy. Assuming we had our inside mids sorted was even worse. Smart clubs like GWS and Collingwood who are loaded with mids still keep bringing them in because they know you can’t have too many.

 

[gringo2011]

Blind Freddy could see Warpol could play GF capt, Vic country capt so he had the runs on the board, just shows drafting for needs is what gets you undone. Draft the best available it’s that simple.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

Same with Pertucelli, same with Oscar Allen. Both looked outstanding and both drifted out. Allen looked like a star in the all stars match. Petrucelli was so fast it was unbelievable. I thought he'd suit us because of it. No one could get near him once he decided to take off. I still remember one play where he took off around the boundary and ran the length of the field, he missed the shot on goal but it was stand up in your seat stuff.

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

Have to nail your draft picks first and foremost. Has always been the case and always will be and with no priority picks it makes it even more important.

You build a team through the draft first then when you look like contending that’s when multiple players from other clubs come. We’ve simply just had too many misses with our picks. Doesn’t matter what the excuses are the end result is nought at the end of the day. Getting nothing from pick 1 is just a killer doesn’t matter what the reasons are.

I can’t think of a recent premiership team that hasn’t drafted super well to start off with.

WC - Gaff, Shuey, Sheed, Darling, Kennedy, McGovern, Rioli, Ryan etc

Richmond - Dusty, Cotchin, Riewoldt, Rance, Lambert etc

Dogs - ridiculously good drafting I could go on and on. Bont, Macrae, Stringer, Johannisen, now Dunkley.

Hawks - Mitchell, Lewis, Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Rioli, Breust

Our rebuild plan to pick a spine first and rely on a FA mid to come was a poor strategy. Assuming we had our inside mids sorted was even worse. Smart clubs like GWS and Collingwood who are loaded with mids still keep bringing them in because they know you can’t have too many.

We missed with Paddy but struck gold with Roma.

You can’t say GWS have been overly smart due to the unbelievable amount of early picks they burnt. Fortunately for them, their Pre-selections have been elite & they have been able to trade their poor selections (Plowman @3, O’Rourke@2, etc ) into more early picks.

The pies were able to rebuild quickly as they made tough calls to trade out favourite sons (Shaw’s x 2, Daisy for a compo pick, etc).

I get your point re: drafting mids but the two most successful clubs of the murder era, Hawthorn & Geelong both had their spine in order first before they went to work on continually adding mids.


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[VDS66]

We missed with Paddy but struck gold with Roma.

You can’t say GWS have been overly smart due to the unbelievable amount of early picks they burnt. Fortunately for them, their Pre-selections have been elite & they have been able to trade their poor selections (Plowman @3, O’Rourke@2, etc ) into more early picks.

The pies were able to rebuild quickly as they made tough calls to trade out favourite sons (Shaw’s x 2, Daisy for a compo pick, etc).

I get your point re: drafting mids but the two most successful clubs of the murder era, Hawthorn & Geelong both had their spine in order first before they went to work on continually adding mids.


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As did we. Sadly it turns out our spine ended up being two fractured vertebrae...

The reliance on FA didn't exactly turn out as promised.

Ultimately I believe you need a combo of both strategies with the balance skewed to where you list is at in terms of balance.

But it won't matter if you don't have the right people in place to execute it.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

The cap is an excuse, we could have lost one or as you said redrawn a couple of contracts. We got played by Pelchen.

Pelchan's plan would have worked fine if we'd chosen the right players, and there is luck involved. Hawks were after Longer before it became apparent they could get McEvoy. Its not that they are geniuses.

Alternate reality.
2011: Marley Williams and Mark Baguely instead of Milera and Saad.
2012: Ben Brown instead of Tom Lee. James Stewart and Lachie Hunter instead of White and Wright.
2013: Crouch and Zac Merrett instead of Dunstan and Acres. Dammit Longer looked like a good deal at the time.
2014: DeGoey ( Ok that would have taken a bit of forsight ) and McLean instead of Paddy and Goddard.

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

As did we. Sadly it turns out our spine ended up being two fractured vertebrae...

The reliance on FA didn't exactly turn out as promised.

Ultimately I believe you need a combo of both strategies with the balance skewed to where you list is at in terms of balance.

But it won't matter if you don't have the right people in place to execute it.

Yep we totally misread the introduction of free agency. I think the league did too... the theory that $ are more important than anything else was fine but they didn't consider 3rd party deals or the lure of success.

What is overlooked is that the clubs that have benefited most from FA are the ones who lobbied hardest to get rid of priority picks.

Very smart of them... get stronger while keeping those at the bottom as unattractive to FA's as possible.

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

Pelchan's plan would have worked fine if we'd chosen the right players, and there is luck involved. Hawks were after Longer before it became apparent they could get McEvoy. Its not that they are geniuses.

Alternate reality.
2011: Marley Williams and Mark Baguely instead of Milera and Saad.
2012: Ben Brown instead of Tom Lee. James Stewart and Lachie Hunter instead of White and Wright.
2013: Crouch and Zac Merrett instead of Dunstan and Acres. Dammit Longer looked like a good deal at the time.
2014: DeGoey ( Ok that would have taken a bit of forsight ) and McLean instead of Paddy and Goddard.

2011: Nil all draw. Neither of Williams of Baguely would make any difference at all to our current team.
2012: I'll give you Brown... what a stuff up by every team that overlooked him!....Hunter was a F/S, Stewart plays VFL and not very well at that.
2013: You can only pick on U18 form and Dunstan & Acres both projected as better senior players.
2014: The biggest issue with '14 was Trout going rogue and picking Dmac over Touk. DeGoey would have been a terrible pick for us with his behaviour early doors. The Pies covered up a heap of stuff he did that didn't get out.

 

[Lenny2020]

Here's a summary of my thoughts...

Pelchen needed to fix the salary cap but he went too far. Goddard probably had to go but we should've kept Dal Santo and McEvoy. I will go to my grave thinking that was a terrible set of decisions. I thought so at the time and still do. Pelchen should've renegotiated their contracts and moved on other players.

2012 was a terrible draft haul. Wrong players, wrong types.
2013 wasn't much better. Billings over Bont, Dunstan and Acres before a few other blokes who are more consistent.
2014 was a disaster but I didn't think McCartin and Goddard were the wrong players. We had no luck.
2015 was mixed IMO. I loved Francis then and now, but we nailed Gresham and got Carlisle but lost him for a whole year and to a few injuries since.
2016 onwards has been better. We had to go after fairly ordinary players to cover up our holes caused by poor drafting but the trade with Hawthorn was a huge win. Clark and Coffield look like future A-graders and Battle and Long could get there too. Paton looks the right type. That really got us back on track. 2018 might just make or break this rebuild but I reckon our club figured that we could get both Kings (obviously at the expense of the 2020 draft, which is massively compromised). It's very possible that we foresaw this and if so that is a very, very good decision by us. It deserves a lot of praise too.

All in all, we have missed quite a few picks and we bottomed out without ever really accumulating enough top 10 picks. Just the two between 2012 and 2016. Thankfully we found Marshall and Wilkie in the rookie draft, and Sinclair is a handy player with skills.

We have a core of about 10 players that we need to build around. All are under 25. That bodes well for the future but I've got no problem with us trying to add in some established talent to start propelling us up the ladder.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I had a chat with a member of the Geelong recruiting brigade yesterday. Rebuilding, he said, is loser code for, "we have no idea where we are at and we're buying ourselves 5 years time before anyone notices we have no idea and we all get sacked!"

We both had a good laugh. So true. The new buzz term in list management is "Dynamic Shaping". It is Geelong's philosophy that has been plagiarised by other top clubs. It entails addressing obvious gaps in the list as quickly as possible, usually with proven players and those who have shown form at the lower level.

Drafting to improve rapidly is now passe and seen as too risky, with results being unmeasureable for years. Bottoming out to get picks is seen as ineffective, as in reality it delivers one superior player only per year. Even then you can score a McCartin, Watts, or Boyd and you're back to square one.

Only if you are gifted numerous early picks can you be sure of beating the numbers game and lottery of the draft. Even then there are no guarantees. Look at GCS and GWS. No flags yet. No finals for GCS.

The difference between those two is instructive. GWS has been far better at targeting and bringing in mature and proven talent. Ward, Davis, Mumford, Deledio, Shaw et al. They have used early draft picks to leverage and strengthen their trading position.

GCS have been the opposite. Leaking young talent, while failing to trade in proven players and experience.

Brisbane has been in a similar position to the GCS and have faced the same challenges. Look at them in the past few years. They haven't bothered retaining those who don't want to be there.

Instead, they have targeted and landed some serious proven talent and experience. Cameron, Christiansen, Adams, Hodge, Martin and Robinson, have all filled crucial roles that have complemented the youth and early draft picks, while providing support and development. They may not all be stars, but have been vital in filling roles.

I feel we're going the same way, thankfully. Gubby and Satan are said to be strong on this point.

My hillbillies' mate tells me we are shopping around our first pick in the hope of splitting it. He reckons they'll (cats) get Jack, although not as certain as he was a month ago. Still the slimmest of chances he'll stay.

They won't be offering up much initially, as expected, but they do want him now that Kelly is gone. If they don't get Higgins, Stuv's value rises drastically. They're not keen on giving up Constable or Narkle, who the saints have thrown up as possible compensation for the Stuv. We may have to settle for a pick.

Still, Hill, Jones and picks for Bruce and Stuv. Jones for the Newnes compensation pick. Hill for Acres and a first. Ryder, Cameron, Ottavi or other back up ruckmen for junk picks. Two of those three are what they're ideally after.

Bing is still very much in the mix. Two firsts on offer. If not, the picks will be used on Crouch or another mid who both the cats and saints are targeting. He wouldn't say who. He's a hillbillie, not a sillybillie!

I'd be happy with similar outcomes to those listed. It certainly is in line with the effective trends in list management of late. The prosecution further tenders the WCEs, filth, swines and tiggers as proof this method works.

Another reason to be cheerful. Exciting trade and draft period ahead. Exciting times onfield coming soon. Stuff the 5 year rebuild! Let's win one in 2020-3. We can do it!

PS. The term "Dynamic Shaping" has been around for a little while. Having dabbled in management consulting, I can assure you it is a classic example of MC jargon. I quickly realised management consulting was the art of telling people what they already know, in words they'd not yet heard in combination.

So for "Dynamic Shaping" feel free to substitute "shrewd drafting", "forward planning", "moneyball trades" and "targeted trading". You get the drift, idea, concept, label etc.

Good to know they came up with a catchy phrase for what i always considered important all the time.

I was getting frustrated with our list management around 2005 , we seemed content to be resting on our laurels ,with a good list, or messing up... Barry Brooks, Fergus Watts style.

Fact is ...we should have had a replacement brewing for Gehrig from around 2006 ( Jack R would have done nicely ).
McEvoy was almost well timed, maybe a year too late.
Kosi,.... we had to play him well past his due date and made mad grabs for Maister and Lee.
Dawson was a mad grab in the dark when someone realised Max H wouldn't go on forever.
All the focus was on finals, but.... finals focus didn't make us pick dud players in drafts did it?
We let our list get older and older, putting dud, and injured players onto the rookie list.
Suddenly they all started retiring at once, there was no opportunity to do it in the smart way you suggest above. We needed to grab anything we could that could get hold of an oval ball, just to get a team out there.

A good player in a draft can last your club more than a decade.
A good traded in 25 YO may last as little as 4 years.

100 game players drafted. StKilda Vs Cats.
2000 2. vs 1
2001 5 vs 4
2002 1 vs 2
2003 1 vs 0
2004 1 vs 0
2005 1 vs 1
2006 3 vs 2
2007 2 vs 2
2008 3 vs 2
2009 0 vs 3

Not chalk and cheese, though they were very good at finding mature talent right when then needed it. James Podsiadly, Shane Mumford etc.
Hard to see they would have had a premiership team that decade without the blind luck of Hawkins and Ablett for late picks.

 

[Indie Rock]

This thread was a great read Drake Huggins. Love the way you write and it sparked a great discussion - keep them coming

 

[Saintbloke]

I remember J Dunstall saying that at Hawthorn, it was all about getting the best available talent, no matter what kind of player they were, over particular players for particular roles. Clearly the development of younger players shows the strength and smarts of a club over the also-rans.

 

[The Punter]

Here's the problem with Sydney, Hawthorn and Geelong: if the only meaningful measurement is winning premierships, then their strategy has stopped working.

The point I'm making here is we need to have a mature discussion about what "success" is. There were people on here and on social media arguing if we had made the finals in 2016 or 2017 it would have actually been a backward step because our draft position would have been weakened and we couldn't win the flag anyway. Surely most supporters would enjoy Saints Footy more if we were winning enough games to play finals. Then we can go from there.

The real issue with this strategy, or any strategy, is the "real" value of draft picks. Is Brad Hill worth pick 5 on its own? Possibly. Is Brad Hill worth double what Jack Steven is worth? Absolutely not. Should Geelong accept less than two 1st rounders for Tim Kelly? Probably, he's not under contract for next season and can walk back to a draft where Freo have pick 6.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Here's the problem with Sydney, Hawthorn and Geelong: if the only meaningful measurement is winning premierships, then their strategy has stopped working.

The point I'm making here is we need to have a mature discussion about what "success" is. There were people on here and on social media arguing if we had made the finals in 2016 or 2017 it would have actually been a backward step because our draft position would have been weakened and we couldn't win the flag anyway. Surely most supporters would enjoy Saints Footy more if we were winning enough games to play finals. Then we can go from there.

The real issue with this strategy, or any strategy, is the "real" value of draft picks. Is Brad Hill worth pick 5 on its own? Possibly. Is Brad Hill worth double what Jack Steven is worth? Absolutely not. Should Geelong accept less than two 1st rounders for Tim Kelly? Probably, he's not under contract for next season and can walk back to a draft where Freo have pick 6.

As the OP says, one draft pick doesn't make that much difference.

 

[mightymalaka]

Did you just reply to yourself?

Only to find you had nothing to say!

I like it!

Edit This is to the Saintbloke!

 

[The Punter]

As the OP says, one draft pick doesn't make that much difference.

I agree. Does pick 5 for Bradley Hill make us better Round 1 2020? Yes.

Does it win us a premiership? Who knows.

 

[Sir Skid]

Dynamic Shaping eh.
I like it..... a lot.

Much better than
Dynamic Equilibrium (s**t in = s**t out)

 

[borderbarry]

True. Helps when you have one of the best fullback to ever play the game in Scarlett and also arguably one of the best players of all time in Ablett for nothing. Don't forget Hawkins etc. Easy to draft well when you have a spine that good.

iIt is the quality of their father and sons pickup that has the most effect for Geelong.

 

[gringo2011]

12 finals series in 13 years. Since 2011, while they've only won 1 flag, they have consistently finished near the top, despite most of the draft picks from the late 90's and naughties being gone or very much past their best. In that time they have used one top ten draft pick.

How do you explain that level of sustained success using your draft pick argument? I know you love nothing more than being contrary for the sake of it, but this is a stretch, even for you.

The facts, not just at Geelong, but the other clubs I've mentioned make a mockery of your argument.

Geelong just aren't a good example, they actually don't trade a lot compared to other clubs. Hawks since their last Premiership have traded in heavily, Carlton took a mass of ex Giants, Sydney cherry picked well in their heyday with players like Josh Kennedy and Shaw etc. Hawks are good at getting high end but are paying a lot in picks to get them, their premiership era was based on drafting not trades despite a couple of good ones.

No club has won a premiership yet based on substantial amounts of imported talent. Collingwood would be the exception if they win this year.

Collingwood funny enough are probably the best example, plenty of their high end is from other clubs. Treloar, Hoskins-Elliott, Adams, Wells, Varcoe, Maine, Greenwood, Aish, Dunn and Beams again.

 

[borderbarry]

Can anyone explain to an old codger how the 2020 draft is badly compromised?

 

[Saintbloke]

Did you just reply to yourself?

Only to find you had nothing to say!

I like it!

Edit This is to the Saintbloke!

I tried to reply but, you can't abuse yourself on this forum...

 

[Lenny2020]

Can anyone explain to an old codger how the 2020 draft is badly compromised?

TWOMEY: Will the 2020 draft be the most compromised in history?

Father-sons and academy players dominate under 17s All Stars selections

www.afl.com.au

Here you go mate. Explains it well.

Basically it's because of things called academies and also some Father/Son prospects. There are different types of academies (Northern academies and Next Generation Academies) across the country that develop talented kids into AFL-ready players.

All of the Northern clubs have academies that are split into geographic zones and every club gets a NGA zone in which kids from indigenous and multicultural backgrounds are developed. The issue is that a player who comes through a specific zone/academy is 'tied' to a club who gets first dibs, much like the F/S system. If another club want a player who is tied to a club, they can select them in the draft, but the club who has first dibs gets to match that bid immediately if they want to and if they have picks that are equal in value to the original bid.

It's complicated but essentially it means that a player who is tied to a club will almost certainly go there if said club want him.

Unfortunately, next year's draft is compromised because there are so many kids already tied to clubs, and they are all tipped to go high in the draft.

We don't have any, but we do have a kid called Bigoa Nyuon who we can draft this year. He is in our NGA zone so we get to draft him.

 

[StCicatriz]

Yep we totally misread the introduction of free agency. I think the league did too... the theory that $ are more important than anything else was fine but they didn't consider 3rd party deals or the lure of success.

What is overlooked is that the clubs that have benefited most from FA are the ones who lobbied hardest to get rid of priority picks.

Very smart of them... get stronger while keeping those at the bottom as unattractive to FA's as possible.

didn't help that the AFL scrapped the limit on third party deals per club. that was canned as part of the last CBA.

so what would have happened previously is any third party deal outside of footy, would have to be included in another cap. so a club like Geelong with Cotton On only had so much bandwidth they could use from them.

the AFLPA pushed back and wanted an unlimited spend, so as long as the player could demonstrate the revenue was not footy related and had nothing to do with their club, it would not contribute to any cap. if it did, it was part of the normal salary cap or marketing allowance.

what that has meant is situations like dylan shiel where you can manipulate circumstance to get part of your salary paid outside the cap.

now there's rumour someone like McGovern was able to stay by getting a third party to buy into his "construction business". a third party with no connection to the club. how the AFL can prove it is, would be very hard. you're essentially landing your self in an ATO type role without any right to access bank accounts etc. to forensically examine if the money should be in the cap or not. so my opinion is that the salary cap is now dead. clubs will pay what ever they feel they want to pay their players. how many that are awake to this is another question. how much a club can pay will be dictated by their influence. how many wealthy supporters they have that are in a position to take players on.

the introduction of zones, the removal of the cap and the AFL's need to expand will make it hard for our club to survive long term if the TV rights and sponsorship $$$ retract.

there's other things occurring in the player pathway over here that i'm not prepared to put into writing. my feel is talent is now being hidden to ensure it stays in the state.

whilst off-field equalisation has improved somewhat, i feel the onfield equalisation measures have gone backwards in a big big way.