List Mgmt. 2022 Trade & List Management Thread

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Like a lot of people I'm torn on our list. On the one hand, our core of quality is clear. On the other, we still seem to have a lare number of 'filler' players. Some would call them list-cloggers. The quality of this finals series makes it clear: We need to have serious quality across the board to compete.

From next year we can expect meaningful improvements in gameplan and fitness, but we don't want to be stuck finishing 9th because the list remains below par. Renewing a list is not a quick process. It doesn't matter if you cut 5 or 10 a year, the constraint is on how much quality you can bring in. It's bloody hard to bring in more than 2 or so quality players in a year no matter how many you turn over.

So how close are we?
I share here some analysis I've done in my angst to get a better handle on where we are at.

--
I started by classifying our end-of-22 list into six categories:

Quality (6)
Unproven Quality (7)
Troopers (8)
CunningtonDavies-Uniacke
Goldstein
Larkey
McKay
Simpkin
Comben
Curtis
Goater
Horne-Francis
Phillips
Powell
Thomas
Anderson
Archer
Greenwood
Hall
McDonald
Scott
Taylor
Young
Unknown (8)
Marginal (8)
Disappointing (6)
Bergman
Coleman-Jones
Dawson
Edwards
Ford
Perez
Stephenson
Zurharr
Bonar
Bosunavulagi
Corr
Mahony
Turner
J. Walker
Xerri
Ziebell
Hayden
Lazzaro
McGuiness
Polec
Spicer
P. Walker

You could argue some of those (McDonald, Zurharr, Xerri, Lazzaro...) but I've tried to err on the pessimistic side.

That gives us a list mix like this:

View attachment 1505581

This gives us 21 players at 'Trooper' and above. Enough to form a core, but not enough for any depth at all.
On top of that, there only only 6 'Quality'. Of those, two are reaching the end (Goldstein and Cunnington) and one just scrapes into the category (Larkey). Compare with 5th-finishing Melbourne, for example, who would have 10-11 in that category.

[Note that this takes no account of team balance and positional needs. The assumption is that over time large imbalances will get patched up by targeted recruitment and trading.]

The advantage we have is that beyond Goldstein and Cunnington, we won't be losing any quality for a while.

Making some reasonable estimates about retirement ages and graphing it out shows that the situation is extreme. Apart from the above two, we will barely be losing anyone of note for the next 6-7 years.

View attachment 1505608

Note that this chart, and all that follow, hide the two lowest 'disposable' categories of players ('Marginal' and 'Disappointing') as the expectation is they will be the kind that can always be found to round up a list to full size.

In the meantime we will be doing recruiting. How has that gone in the past?
The chart below shows the end-of-2022 list categorised by quality and year-joined (not draft year). Note that the years before 2015 with no survivers are not shown.

View attachment 1505617

There are a few takeaways from this chart:
  • As we all know, the five years between 2010 and 2014 have produced almost nothing for us and were a big reason for our recent struggles.
  • During 2015-2017 we didn't pick up many but we stockpiled some quality (McKay, Simpkin, LDU and Larkey)
  • The bulk of our potential list going forward has come from the last 4 recruitment seasons and the evolution of the 'Unproven quality' and 'Unknowns' in this will be crucial.
This analysis uses the categories of how we see players now but that doesn't mean thy were categorised that way when they arrived.
I don't think this distinction matters though because development can result in both upgrades and downgrades of potential and my model of development (see below) is quite balanced in that respect.

This chart also gives us an idea of what to expect from our recruitment and trading going forward. If we can continue the pattern of the last few years, we should expect each year to get:
  • 1.75 x Unproven quality
  • 1.5 x Trooper
  • 1.5 x Unknown
There's now even a chance we could attract a genuine quality free agent, but I treat this as a bonus.

The past few years probably gives a slightly optimistic view because we essentially got CCJ and Curtis last year for our 2023 2nd and 3rd round picks. But averaging this out over 4 years reduces its impact and this skew will likely be more than balanced by the 'Clarko effect' of being much better able to attract talent than in the past.

That's recruitment. But there's also development. Hopefully 'Unproven quality' can become 'Quality'. 'Unknowns' should become something else. If we make some assumptions about the kinds of transitions then we can anticipate a 'status quo' picture of where we might end up. If we nail the development and every kid turns into a star we'll do better. If they all turn into Kieran Harper, Aaron Black and Aaron Mullett we'll do worse.

Caveat: Yes I know this is getting speculative, but come for the ride.

For the record, these are the development probabilities I used for change between categories each year:

View attachment 1505662

In addition I assume that we can delist the worst performers on the list to maintain a list of 44. This won't always be true due to list balance and contract situations, but those aspects should only make minor differences and be quickly corrected in following years.

So putting that all together: retirements, recruitment, development, delistings, what does that project for the future?
Note that this doesn't take into account anything to do with specific recruiting or development, simply extrapolating forward our current age/quality list profile and seeing where it takes us.

View attachment 1505669

The key takeaway here is that we should get meaningful improvements in our list over the next 5-8 years. This is the flip side to our talent drought before 2015: We just won't be losing much out the top end, so every year we'll be bringing in talent and using that to raise the standards on the bottom end.

That said we can't really hit that 10+ level of quality that we would need to be a top list until 2026.

Is it possible to condense that into a single number, like a "List Quality Score?". Probably not, but I'll do it anyway. I give a score to each category, heavily weighting quality and downplaying the bottom end. Then I can add up those scores to give a value for firstly the entire list, and then for the 'top-30' assuming that's the most relevant group for year-to-year performance.

View attachment 1505670


View attachment 1505680

Again, the same pattern: A significant climb over an extended period.

So what does all this mean? Well, it mostly confirms what most of us probably already know:
  • Our list currently has a lot of unproven quality and 'fillers'
  • We should see improvements in the list each year
  • In the short term we still have to deal with the loss of Goldstein and Cunnington which will slow the list improvement
  • Given vanilla assumptions, we should expect continue to meaningfully improve the list over a number of years because we will stop losing talent.
  • The big lift next year will be all about systems, fitness, strength, engagement and individual development.
  • The list seems to plausibly have enough talent to compete, but not in the short term.

Go and turn this into its own thread mate, far too good and far too much work to get lost in here. If Hunter Clark's uncle says he wanted to be a Roo as a kid tonight then maybe nobody would ever see this post.
 
That one might be waiting on Geelong to get eliminated and that in itself probably tells the tale.
Or exit interviews for GWS. Seems to be a few clubs doing it next week.

Definitely appears to be more likely to join Geelong.
 

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Let St Kilda wallow in their mess they made when they gave up the world for Brad Hill who they over valued even when they poached him from Freo. There's no way to get him cheap enough not to impact our salary cap down the road and for a nothing pick. I'm glad Clarkson is the sort of guy that retains holds over some players even after they've played for two other clubs but for a luxury he's not a luxury, we need to go and make our own Brad Hill and keep our powder dry for finishing products in a year or so. He's 29, not 25.

This year needs to be about good prospect younger players (Logue, Bruhn, Clark for example as those links) and anyone 27 upwards needs to be cheap foot soldier meat-shields, role players and if one or two are about in a finals tilt then good for them.
Yeah if it was a 29yr old roughy it might be a different story
 
Ralph’s article mentions attaining Logue with our PSD1. I still think it’s a pipe dream but we all know pipe dreams do sometimes happen around here. In fact I had my own Caro moment recently, I thought getting Clarko was a pipe dream.
There is nothing 'pipe dreamish' about using the psd at all.

It is a legitimate tool provided by the AFL to assist those finishing at or toward the bottom of the ladder to attract talent without sacrificing picks.

The fact that we elected not to use it last year should/will be a red flag to the AFL when they are considering the amount of PP's they give us. ie Why are you asking us for PP's when you didn't even use what was available to you last year...in fact you gave away pick 19 when you didn't need to.....

I expect the new broom at North under Clarko to use the psd - or at least the threat of the psd - to produce a good outcome for us with Logue.

The shenanigans with CCJ and what we paid for him given the psd was available was part of the Nobes era we just need to forget - it was rank amateur hour stuff amongst far too many amateur hour examples.
 
I really like the idea of going after Logue and Bruhn. Both have huge amounts of upside, fills needs and can continue to grow with our your developing list.

I feel a lot less enthusiastic about Hill, Tucker & Long. While 1 of them might be okay, ending up with 2 or 3 could backfire, especially if they are on anything more than 2 year contracts. All 3 of them could be okay role players, but they are equally a chance to become a list clogger.

While I agree we need some experience, players like Hill aren’t the answer for leadership and setting team standards imo.

Logue, Bruhn, a couple of picks inside the top 20 plus Cooper Harvey is more than enough for this off season.

I could see us coming on far quicker than people realise if Clarko gets the guys fire on all cylinders. There is still tonnes of organic growth within this group. A full season out of a fit Cunnington would also significantly help from a leadership perspective.
 
I think he will be a decent pick up.
He wont cost much which is ideal at the moment.
I just don't rate him as high as the other guys we have been linked too.

If we can get two of your top four and Tucker is the one of your last two, I'll take that as a win.

Gonna be some curveballs though, can just feel it.
 
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