Rumour GFC 2023 Player Trading, Drafting FA, Rumours and Wish lists Pt1

[cats_09]

As we are now getting into the season and we are starting to get a bit more serious with discussion, seems a suitable time to post the following as it's repeatedly shown itself to be a value reference tool in trade & draft discussion

And as per normal, thanks to Lore for putting this together - always a fantastic reference tool



And yes this post is now stickied - makes it easy to keep track of (can easily reverse this though if needed)

 

[bulletproof]

On Esava.
Heard this a couple weeks ago... If Scott Mack Griggsy Hocking have a say in it.
He'll be in the hoops for the next 3-4 years if my info is correct.
If it's cash. He'll get 30% elsewhere and quite easily TBH.
Up to Sav. As he can set himself up financially for life if he indeed goes interstate.
Watch this space at it will ($$$) have ramifications on the offerings to Doedee TDK Parish.
There is even the left field options which i've heard regards Witherden heading back to the region. Why we are asking? Dunno know why.
The other whisper of note is Lachie Whitfield.
Watch this space on this one. Has 4 years left on top dollars but what might come with it is the MAIN point of interest here for me.
Make of it what you will but like all rumours some are just more than that.
FWIW For me.
A catch of Lachie Ash, Darcy Parish and holding onto Sav would be an ideal scenario... with the addition of Doedee as being a real bonus.
We have a number of players at the very end of their careers in Issac Smith, Zac Tuohy & Jon Ceglar delisted/retired at years end with Danger, Duncan, Hawk, Menegola, Stanley and Guthrie most likely the year after...
Cheers Boys. Go Catters!!

There is no way we have salary cap room to accommodate anything like that.

Last year it was clear salary cap space was opening up. I don’t see it like that this year.

We don’t have many big salaries coming off th books.

End of next year we will have more room.

 

[Gee Class Loco]

There is no way we have salary cap room to accommodate anything like that.

Last year it was clear salary cap space was opening up. I don’t see it like that this year.

We don’t have many big salaries coming off th books.

End of next year we will have more room.

Maybe yes. Maybe not.

 

[MisterMarcus]

On Esava.
Heard this a couple weeks ago... If Scott Mack Griggsy Hocking have a say in it.
He'll be in the hoops for the next 3-4 years if my info is correct.
If it's cash. He'll get 30% elsewhere and quite easily TBH.
Up to Sav. As he can set himself up financially for life if he indeed goes interstate.
Watch this space at it will ($$$) have ramifications on the offerings to Doedee TDK Parish.
There is even the left field options which i've heard regards Witherden heading back to the region. Why we are asking? Dunno know why.
The other whisper of note is Lachie Whitfield.
Watch this space on this one. Has 4 years left on top dollars but what might come with it is the MAIN point of interest here for me.
Make of it what you will but like all rumours some are just more than that.
FWIW For me.
A catch of Lachie Ash, Darcy Parish and holding onto Sav would be an ideal scenario... with the addition of Doedee as being a real bonus.
We have a number of players at the very end of their careers in Issac Smith, Zac Tuohy & Jon Ceglar delisted/retired at years end with Danger, Duncan, Hawk, Menegola, Stanley and Guthrie most likely the year after...
Cheers Boys. Go Catters!!

GWS will need to give us BOTH Top 10 picks if they want us to take on Whitfield's massive $$$ for 4 more years.....

 

[D BRIDGE]

GWS will need to give us BOTH Top 10 picks if they want us to take on Whitfield's massive $$$ for 4 more years.....

You act as if Whitfield isn't a gun player.

 

[Shadow89]

There is no way we have salary cap room to accommodate anything like that.

Last year it was clear salary cap space was opening up. I don’t see it like that this year.

We don’t have many big salaries coming off th books.

End of next year we will have more room.

Honestly, gonna have to disagree with this one.

We had the money to chase Hopper, and absorb Bowes' contract last year - and only did one of those things. We also then brought in Henry, Bruhn and Clark, rather than Hopper - so would have that money as a starting point.

Then, we likely will have Tuohy (450K), Menegola (400K), I. Smith (500K), Parfitt (350K) and maybe Ceglar (300K), who probably would make up around 2 MIL or so. We're also rumoured to be chasing Parish, TDK and Doedee this year, so would have to have the cap to accommodate them.

With that said, no-one knows for sure where we're at, but it is a pretty much known fact, that after next year - we'll be at Hawks/North levels of available cap - given all the money ball players we'll have on our list/all the retirements we'll have. Duncan, Hawkins and Stanley at a minimum probably move on next year. Then Danger could retire rather than playing on (I think he goes another couple after next year playing as a full forward).

Finally, the recent 'rich list' just got released by Herald Sun, and only Danger, Stew and Jez made it into the list - with Jez the only one north of 700K. When you look at the remainder of our list, there's very few that would command big money on there. If that's the case, would not surprise to see us in a situation where we end up having around 2 MIL to throw around.

In all likelihood, we'll actually have more money to throw around this year, than next year - which is probably why there's so many players we're being linked to (some real, some likely BS).

Figures are hard to ascertain, and these are all ballpark estimates, but I'd say they're roughly around the mark given we're pretty even in what we pay our senior players. If you add the Hopper money on top of those changes, you end up with 2.5 MIL or so. IF that's the case, it's not too hard to see how we could go after say Parish/Ash, TDK, and Doedee, and then 'purchase' Whitfield - who is a star player in his own right.

Don't see it happening, and think it's more unlikely than likely (would also rather Ash anyway), but can see how it could be possible, if the stars align and we are managing our cap/list as well as it appears we are from the info that's available.

 

[Gee Class Loco]

GWS will need to give us BOTH Top 10 picks if they want us to take on Whitfield's massive $$$ for 4 more years.....

I’d happily take one of them and run as fast as I can as it’ll be the steal of the century…. lol

 

[Kobe Gryant]

Honestly, gonna have to disagree with this one.

We had the money to chase Hopper, and absorb Bowes' contract last year - and only did one of those things. We also then brought in Henry, Bruhn and Clark, rather than Hopper - so would have that money as a starting point.

Then, we likely will have Tuohy (450K), Menegola (400K), I. Smith (500K), Parfitt (350K) and maybe Ceglar (300K), who probably would make up around 2 MIL or so. We're also rumoured to be chasing Parish, TDK and Doedee this year, so would have to have the cap to accommodate them.

With that said, no-one knows for sure where we're at, but it is a pretty much known fact, that after next year - we'll be at Hawks/North levels of available cap - given all the money ball players we'll have on our list/all the retirements we'll have. Duncan, Hawkins and Stanley at a minimum probably move on next year. Then Danger could retire rather than playing on (I think he goes another couple after next year playing as a full forward).

Finally, the recent 'rich list' just got released by Herald Sun, and only Danger, Stew and Jez made it into the list - with Jez the only one north of 700K. When you look at the remainder of our list, there's very few that would command big money on there. If that's the case, would not surprise to see us in a situation where we end up having around 2 MIL to throw around.

In all likelihood, we'll actually have more money to throw around this year, than next year - which is probably why there's so many players we're being linked to (some real, some likely BS).

Figures are hard to ascertain, and these are all ballpark estimates, but I'd say they're roughly around the mark given we're pretty even in what we pay our senior players. If you add the Hopper money on top of those changes, you end up with 2.5 MIL or so. IF that's the case, it's not too hard to see how we could go after say Parish/Ash, TDK, and Doedee, and then 'purchase' Whitfield - who is a star player in his own right.

Don't see it happening, and think it's more unlikely than likely (would also rather Ash anyway), but can see how it could be possible, if the stars align and we are managing our cap/list as well as it appears we are from the info that's available.

The other factor as well is contracts aren't as cut and dry as many think they are.

We could hypothetically offer Parish big bucks to get him as a FA on a front ended contract, and it will tale off as the years go on.

Doedee, TDK and Ash could be acquired using backended contracts, as we'll have cap space open up through our retirements.

This suits TDK and Ash in particular, as their price will be rising parallel to their importance in our side, and their incremental improvement as they hit their prime years.

Whitfield could have his deal flattened similar to Bowes (E.g we take 5 years instead of 4, but the salary PA is decreased)

It does sound like a fever dream, but Clark, Bowes, Bruhn and Henry sounded too good to be true as well. You just never know.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

Can't see what Witherden adds, would almost rather go after Dow and that's saying something.

We will need players in that 25-30 bracket over the next few years as we're going to suddenly be really young (albeit talented), but he just doesn't seem to have any attributes that are worth pursuing.

Looked really good in his first handful of games, but it's been downhill since.

If we were to acquire Ash as well, where do you even play Witherden? I suppose Ash could play midfield, but Mullin still needs time at half back.

 

[cats_09]

Can't see what Witherden adds, would almost rather go after Dow and that's saying something.

We will need players in that 25-30 bracket over the next few years as we're going to suddenly be really young (albeit talented), but he just doesn't seem to have any attributes that are worth pursuing.

Looked really good in his first handful of games, but it's been downhill since.

If we were to acquire Ash as well, where do you even play Witherden? I suppose Ash could play midfield, but Mullin still needs time at half back.

I think it was suggested by someone else that he's a great mate with Parish

So chatting with Witherden & seeing if he wants to return to Geelong could potentially be about more than just seeing if he wants to return home

 

[Hamingja]

I couldn't understand the Witherden chat before he went to the Eagles, let alone now. Hopefully we avoid Doedee the same. Dime a dozen half backs are not required. We can find them from the rookie list or from Ireland....

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I asked the question again on the possible GWS player and got nothing.

Either the club is being deliberately tight-lipped or they don't think they can get him.

Sounds like it might be a complicated ashquisition

 

[bombersboy]

I’d happily take one of them and run as fast as I can as it’ll be the steal of the century…. lol

I think Whitfield's best footy is probably behind him.

 

[CHAWKTS]

Wasn’t sure where to post this. But came across the coach report on each player for Box Hill Hawks. It is very honest about parts he liked and parts he didn’t. Below was on ex Cat Cooper Stephens who I don’t think has cracked a game for the lowly Hawks this year…and maybe this gives some insight…from the coaches report last week game

Cooper Stephens (24 disposals, 6 clearances, 1 goal)

"Coop had a strong start to the game, he was nice and tough inside and was really solid in that area. We'll continue to work with Coop with his contest-to-contest running and getting out, challenging the opposition both ways. The thing we love about Coop is how tough he is inside - he had another solid day where he was able to extract six clearances and hit the scoreboard himself. Unfortunately, he just got outworked in the second half, and wasn't tough enough for long enough. Overall a solid performance for Coop, without being outstanding."

 

[Shadow89]

I asked the question again on the possible GWS player and got nothing.

Either the club is being deliberately tight-lipped or they don't think they can get him.

Or the overly positive reasoning - we're being extremely tight lipped because we don't even want GWS getting wind of it just yet, as it's the player's request?

Would suggest someone decent if that were the case. If it were fringe like XOH or Flynn, then I wouldn't think they'd be so hush hush about it.

In a strange way, them playing it close to their chest, gives me more positivity than if there were rumours floating about

 

[Shadow89]

I think Whitfield's best footy is probably behind him.

It's interesting though...with this new 'pick purchasing' template...do you think that it might actually enable us to stay up even longer - given how clever we are at managing our salary cap?

For example, let's say we take on Whitfield's 1 MIL salary, and then instead of GWS giving us a pick, they go 'ok Ash has said he wants to leave too and go to you guys - so we're keeping our pick but you can have the gun player instead.'

Essentially, instead of us giving them our Pick 10, we get Ash and Whitfield for nothing, except salary. Even if Whitfield is past it, we still use our Pick 10 at the draft and get a gun kid, whilst also bringing in Ash and Whit, who could still surprise with a fresh start at a new club.

That's what interests me the most about this mechanism, as clubs won't care where the player goes, but the player definitely will care where they go. If a player has a choice between a cashed up Hawks, North, or us - who are they realistically gonna choose?

No matter how far we fall down the ladder, players will always come to us because we have the work/life balance that other clubs don't, we always aim for success, and our culture is the stuff of legend.

Sam Mitchell's been licking his lips thinking it'll benefit him and his Hawks, but honestly, like Bowes last year, I think it'll benefit those clubs who are both well run in sal cap terms and in a general organistional sense + in contention, and with a culture of success and work/life balance.

Clubs like Brisbane, us, Freo and Sydney, all offer these type of benefits - or a 'sea change' of sorts. We've always been one step ahead when it comes to new implementations, and I reckon we'll see another curveball like something I mentioned above this trade period.

Could you imagine the collective toy throwing if we brought in TDK, Doedee, Whit and Ash (don't see Parish leaving) - using all these mechanisms...for essentially the mid 20's pick that TDK would cost? The AFL world would lose its mind, haha.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

I think it was suggested by someone else that he's a great mate with Parish

So chatting with Witherden & seeing if he wants to return to Geelong could potentially be about more than just seeing if he wants to return home

That has some merit, and probably beats the alternative of Rhys 'The Barometer' Mathieson.

If it meant securing Parish I'd be open to it, similar to the Lions with Neale and Linc a few years back.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

It's interesting though...with this new 'pick purchasing' template...do you think that it might actually enable us to stay up even longer - given how clever we are at managing our salary cap?

For example, let's say we take on Whitfield's 1 MIL salary, and then instead of GWS giving us a pick, they go 'ok Ash has said he wants to leave too and go to you guys - so we're keeping our pick but you can have the gun player instead.'

Essentially, instead of us giving them our Pick 10, we get Ash and Whitfield for nothing, except salary. Even if Whitfield is past it, we still use our Pick 10 at the draft and get a gun kid, whilst also bringing in Ash and Whit, who could still surprise with a fresh start at a new club.

That's what interests me the most about this mechanism, as clubs won't care where the player goes, but the player definitely will care where they go. If a player has a choice between a cashed up Hawks, North, or us - who are they realistically gonna choose?

No matter how far we fall down the ladder, players will always come to us because we have the work/life balance that other clubs don't, we always aim for success, and our culture is the stuff of legend.

Sam Mitchell's been licking his lips thinking it'll benefit him and his Hawks, but honestly, like Bowes last year, I think it'll benefit those clubs who are both well run in sal cap terms and in a general organistional sense + in contention, and with a culture of success and work/life balance.

Clubs like Brisbane, us, Freo and Sydney, all offer these type of benefits - or a 'sea change' of sorts. We've always been one step ahead when it comes to new implementations, and I reckon we'll see another curveball like something I mentioned above this trade period.

Could you imagine the collective toy throwing if we brought in TDK, Doedee, Whit and Ash - using all these mechanisms...for essentially the mid 20's pick that TDK would cost? The AFL world would lose its mind, haha.

On paper you could argue this will help teams bottom out quicker and rebound.

If it's unrestricted and you structure your list with cap to burn then load up on a 3-4 in the top 10 scenario a couple of times you could end up building a powerhouse pretty quick. Then those powerhouses get squeezed later on but offload their cap for picks they don't really need to use.

You might also find other clubs ready to blow up their list to generate cap and buy picks so you might find decent players on the scrap heap for cheap.

Also a trade for a player where the other party doesn't have a pick or a player to trade out, you'll maybe find it easier to obtain the picks to get it over the line and the team the player is leaving may be more assertive in demands.

But overall, the increased fluidity of player movement, and the universal rule that players will accept unders to play on winning sides, means that I think this will just help strong clubs stay strong and will set back equalisation a long way.

 

[catempire]

Wasn’t sure where to post this. But came across the coach report on each player for Box Hill Hawks. It is very honest about parts he liked and parts he didn’t. Below was on ex Cat Cooper Stephens who I don’t think has cracked a game for the lowly Hawks this year…and maybe this gives some insight…from the coaches report last week game

Cooper Stephens (24 disposals, 6 clearances, 1 goal)

"Coop had a strong start to the game, he was nice and tough inside and was really solid in that area. We'll continue to work with Coop with his contest-to-contest running and getting out, challenging the opposition both ways. The thing we love about Coop is how tough he is inside - he had another solid day where he was able to extract six clearances and hit the scoreboard himself. Unfortunately, he just got outworked in the second half, and wasn't tough enough for long enough. Overall a solid performance for Coop, without being outstanding."

Geelong has selected a few in the same mould over the years who were big bodied inside mids that struggled to cover the ground and find easy ball outside. I even thought Knevitt might be the same. I suspect him playing on the wing is, in part, about teaching him to find some easy(/easier) ball around the ground.

 

[MisterMarcus]

It's interesting though...with this new 'pick purchasing' template...do you think that it might actually enable us to stay up even longer - given how clever we are at managing our salary cap?

For example, let's say we take on Whitfield's 1 MIL salary, and then instead of GWS giving us a pick, they go 'ok Ash has said he wants to leave too and go to you guys - so we're keeping our pick but you can have the gun player instead.'

Essentially, instead of us giving them our Pick 10, we get Ash and Whitfield for nothing, except salary. Even if Whitfield is past it, we still use our Pick 10 at the draft and get a gun kid, whilst also bringing in Ash and Whit, who could still surprise with a fresh start at a new club.

That's what interests me the most about this mechanism, as clubs won't care where the player goes, but the player definitely will care where they go. If a player has a choice between a cashed up Hawks, North, or us - who are they realistically gonna choose?

No matter how far we fall down the ladder, players will always come to us because we have the work/life balance that other clubs don't, we always aim for success, and our culture is the stuff of legend.

Sam Mitchell's been licking his lips thinking it'll benefit him and his Hawks, but honestly, like Bowes last year, I think it'll benefit those clubs who are both well run in sal cap terms and in a general organistional sense + in contention, and with a culture of success and work/life balance.

Clubs like Brisbane, us, Freo and Sydney, all offer these type of benefits - or a 'sea change' of sorts. We've always been one step ahead when it comes to new implementations, and I reckon we'll see another curveball like something I mentioned above this trade period.

Could you imagine the collective toy throwing if we brought in TDK, Doedee, Whit and Ash (don't see Parish leaving) - using all these mechanisms...for essentially the mid 20's pick that TDK would cost? The AFL world would lose its mind, haha.

Only issue I can see is if it causes resentment and disunity among the playing group.

"They are forking out squillions for this guy to play funny buggers with the draft, but they can't give me a few hundred thousand pay rise???"

 

[4quarter_cat]

Absolutely agree c2tf.

What is stopping, power house clubs trading picks to feeder clubs who also pay the power house clubs salaries.

I mean its an overly simplistic view, but as an example we might trade out our 1st rounder for salary cap space every other year So that we alway have money to burn on attracting good free agents.

 

[Lana]

It's interesting though...with this new 'pick purchasing' template...do you think that it might actually enable us to stay up even longer - given how clever we are at managing our salary cap?

For example, let's say we take on Whitfield's 1 MIL salary, and then instead of GWS giving us a pick, they go 'ok Ash has said he wants to leave too and go to you guys - so we're keeping our pick but you can have the gun player instead.'

Essentially, instead of us giving them our Pick 10, we get Ash and Whitfield for nothing, except salary. Even if Whitfield is past it, we still use our Pick 10 at the draft and get a gun kid, whilst also bringing in Ash and Whit, who could still surprise with a fresh start at a new club.

That's what interests me the most about this mechanism, as clubs won't care where the player goes, but the player definitely will care where they go. If a player has a choice between a cashed up Hawks, North, or us - who are they realistically gonna choose?

No matter how far we fall down the ladder, players will always come to us because we have the work/life balance that other clubs don't, we always aim for success, and our culture is the stuff of legend.

Sam Mitchell's been licking his lips thinking it'll benefit him and his Hawks, but honestly, like Bowes last year, I think it'll benefit those clubs who are both well run in sal cap terms and in a general organistional sense + in contention, and with a culture of success and work/life balance.

Clubs like Brisbane, us, Freo and Sydney, all offer these type of benefits - or a 'sea change' of sorts. We've always been one step ahead when it comes to new implementations, and I reckon we'll see another curveball like something I mentioned above this trade period.

Could you imagine the collective toy throwing if we brought in TDK, Doedee, Whit and Ash (don't see Parish leaving) - using all these mechanisms...for essentially the mid 20's pick that TDK would cost? The AFL world would lose its mind, haha.

I don't think we'll have the cap space to make all of those moves this year. End of next season will make or break us, we'll be dumping quite a few long term deals. It'll be like 2015 all over again.

I can't wait to see how deep the hole some teams are going to find themselves in. A team like Carlton or Essendon is bound to **** it up overvaluing the "stars" on their list.

It's hard to see how the market will value the cash for picks. The GC completely misread the market, once they put pick 8 on the table literally every club was interested.

The AFL will have to close the Bowes loophole. Bowes on at 4 year 400k deal. 100k of that is the base wage of a new recruit. 300k out of a 1100k available salary cap after you remove the base wages for every list player. We traded something 3% of our cap space for a player and pick 8.

When a player's involved it feels like it could be quite extortionary, if the player doesn't play ball then no deal is made. If cap space alone can be traded, it feels like the price cap space gets devalued compared to draft picks, the options and flexibility by quite a bit increase as you can deal with pretty much anyone.

 

[Shadow89]

Only issue I can see is if it causes resentment and disunity among the playing group.

"They are forking out squillions for this guy to play funny buggers with the draft, but they can't give me a few hundred thousand pay rise???"

Yeah I definitely think this is a fair point, which is probably why we'd be more likely to go the Witherden route and bring in Parish, than break our cap structure to get Whit and a free player in Ash (both complete hypotheticals).

Terms of cap space, if we dump Tuohy, Smith, Ceglar, Parf and Menegola as I expect, then we'd have the cap space to bring in those 4 players, given the 700K or so we had reserved for Hopper last year.

Again, complete hypotheticals, and a snowball's chance of actually happening, but more to point out that this may not work out how the AFL/struggling clubs hope it will - as there's always ways to game the system, and good players always want to go to good/well run clubs.

 

[Lana]

Only issue I can see is if it causes resentment and disunity among the playing group.

"They are forking out squillions for this guy to play funny buggers with the draft, but they can't give me a few hundred thousand pay rise???"

Winning usually removes all resentment

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Absolutely agree c2tf.

What is stopping, power house clubs trading picks to feeder clubs who also pay the power house clubs salaries.

I mean its an overly simplistic view, but as an example we might trade out our 1st rounder for salary cap space every other year So that we alway have money to burn on attracting good free agents.

I'm kind of stretching to infinity with the thoughts on it which is why I think they'll impose a limit - can only offload 500k a year, can only on-board 1m etc

Might do more to make a few trades fairer and help clubs with young losts avoid a bit of the overpayment trap.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I don't think we'll have the cap space to make all of those moves this year. End of next season will make or break us, we'll be dumping quite a few long term deals. It'll be like 2015 all over again.

I can't wait to see how deep the hole some teams are going to find themselves in. A team like Carlton or Essendon is bound to * it up overvaluing the "stars" on their list.

It's hard to see how the market will value the cash for picks. The GC completely misread the market, once they put pick 8 on the table literally every club was interested.

The AFL will have to close the Bowes loophole. Bowes on at 4 year 400k deal. 100k of that is the base wage of a new recruit. 300k out of a 1100k available salary cap after you remove the base wages for every list player. We traded something 3% of our cap space for a player and pick 8.

When a player's involved it feels like it could be quite extortionary, if the player doesn't play ball then no deal is made. If cap space alone can be traded, it feels like the price cap space gets devalued compared to draft picks, the options and flexibility by quite a bit increase as you can deal with pretty much anyone.

On thing a pure pick for dollars trade does in each draft too is give a mechanism to directly price dvi by draft. Depending on data point you could even get an indicator on perceived depth within draft as well as comparing years.