MacStradbroke
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jul 19, 2015
- 7,151
- 21,905
- AFL Club
- Geelong
Woah, no one could suggest you are not invested!!!An utterly strange post that would make many examples of historical propaganda proud.
Well done on figuring out that OOC players command less. Obviously. We're not expecting a Dylan Shiel in-contract trade haul here.
This idea that he wasn't playing in his favoured position is bizarre, and to the extent is true, is simply because a bunch of other elite mids also existed? existed in the same team, and being behind them in the pecking order shouldn't be controversial.
2022 CBA attendances from matches played: Macrae 64%, Libba 59%, Bont 58%, Smith 54%, Dunkley 50%, Treloar 34%.
He actually played more midfield minutes than both Dunkley (who eventually won our best and fairest by playing excellent footy on the basis of the midfield that he did play) and Treloar (who would return to All-Australian output by 2024, by playing again as a full-time, centre-bounce midfielder).
2023 CBA attendances: Bont 81% Libba 78%, Treloar 81%, Macrae 36%, Smith 30%.
Bont and Libba were both All-Australian squad members and Treloar played much better football. Macrae was coming off three All-Austrlaian performances.
Across his last two years that he played, he played as many midfield minutes as you would reasonably expect any player who is very good but not quite as good as literal best-and-fairest winners or All-Australians would play.
He was alternatively a hard-running half forward but would also play minutes as the forward +1 into the midfield (so adding to the midfield without starting at the centre bounce)
Compare, for instance, to the fact that Sydney have had to chop and change who plays in their centre bounce rotation to find success, but it didn't mean that any player was necessarily being played "out of position" when it could be the perspective of needing to "find their mix". I don't think you can really criticise the Dogs for wanting to play Bont in the midfield more and forward line less, and something has to give a bit, which is the case.
For Smith's "worth". His output was somewhat patchy, and his kicking in 2023 was pretty terrible, and didn't necessarily improve with age. But Dogs fans always valued his hard running, his versatility, and the fact that he had match-winning capabilities, above and beyond a young player appearing good with the potential to be match-winning in the future. For instance, he has 8 games with 8+ coaches votes, a rate unmached by many of the other midfielders in the league considered to be the "best" under 25. It is precisely those attributes that made him an in demand player.
GWS would immediately accept our future first and future second for pick 15 or 16 in the current draft, which we could use to to draft Smith, which we could threaten to do on draft day itself, the pick immediately before Geelong's. The threat of us doing that trade is not distinct from the threat of drafting Smith in any case.
The fact that he has no interest at being at our club is irrelavent in the context of us re-drafting him. All we have to do is be able to fit him in our salary cap. That's Smtih's risk for requesting a trade not as a free agent - all players agree to these rules part of their collective bargaining. In theory, I'm sure the AFL and the clubs would be willing to introduce more expansive free agency rights for players and freedom of movement if they took a smaller piece of the AFL's overall revenue.
The willigness to get nothing in return is the whole point, because it has to be sincere, otherwise there's not reason for Geelong not to minimise their trade haul, as anything traded is by definition more than nothing.
If the Dogs merely want to avoid not getting nothing for Smith, that logic has to extend out to accepting a fourth-round pick for Smith. There has to be a point that the willingness to accept nothing would make Geelong be the first to break and offer more. It worked for us with Dunkley, Brisbane added to their trade offer in the final hours of trade week.
That would have been factored into the risk of the contract you were willing to offer him. The Dogs also aren't stupid. The club is aware of the historic nature of discussions between Smith's management and Geelong over the course of more than one year. Pretending that you're taking some big risk of drafting him or that the Geelong football club is only forming their opinion of Smith as a player in some sort of fake-"oh gee, we're only realising now, once the season has conlcuded, that he's out of contract" is fooling no-one, and achieves nothing.
I wouldn't say Smith is despised by the club and it's fans, the club is frustrated by him, especially by the good faith basis that we've treated him over the years, only for Smtih to talk to other clubs and not give the existing team its full support this season.
Because a two-year contract takes Smith to free agency, which specifically in the case of the Dogs, is of greater value to Smith than the security gained in a long-term contract. The fact that you couldn't work out that the two years is both taking him to free agency and precisely a gift by the Dogs and us giving something up to Smith's benefit when it would be our preference to sign him for longer if we're signing him at all should invalidate the rest of your post
We're not pushing him out. We're allowing him to be out of contract in the very first year that he would be eligible for free agency as an out-of-contract player (8 years). Gee. Not rocket science.
The fact that Geelong fans consistently suggest that Ratugolea was some big underpay continues to be perplexing. He was a player that had one year of reasonable form, needed positional changes to determine his worth, and had played a lot of recent VFL football is the case. It probably was a slight underpay but not hugely so.
You also have to consider the balanced examples here - the Dogs rarely have in-demand players want to trade through to them. There was no benefit to Geelong wielding power because it was the same lack of other clubs wielding power that had benefitted them in the past (Bruhn, Cameron, Dangerfield after RFA matching etc.) so the net overall result was beneficial to Geelong. If you'd made a stand with Clark, than the future trades of the Bruhns of the world you wouldn't have been able to trade so cheaply yourself, as GWS would have treated you as you treated the same way with other clubs. The Dogs don't have that worry, because players so rarely come to us on big money deals, that we're not losing out on future trades.
No, the valuation of him by both Geelong and Dogs fans is on the basis of the fact that Geelong are willing to pay him a five year contract for about a million dollars a year.
Both clubs' valuation of him as a player is similar. The Dogs are offering him similar money but only for two years, as we can also offer him free agency eligiblity after two years at the Dogs. If he moves to the Cats, he's not a free agent after two years there, so he may as well sign for the extra three years for the guaranteed money.
People are suggesting that it's asking for trouble because a belief that Geelong are not paying up enough in a trade that reflects both the valuation of the player through the contracts both the Dogs and Geelong are offering is Geelong looking to take advantage of a flawed system of getting players to clubs they want to get to OOC but pre-free agent. Everyone can agree a system that Josh Battle gets St Kilda a top 10 pick but Smith, with fewer years of service to the Dogs, have to accept a worse pick as compensation is inherently flawed in the delicate balancing act of equalisation, for rewarding clubs for identifying talent in the league, and allowing freedom of movement and limiting the restraint of trade of players. People don't look to change it too deeply because most of the time, teams pay enough in trades for pre-FA, OOC players (see Cerra, Rankine etc) that nobody complains about the system too much. But in combination with F/S, Academy, the cracks can show - St Kilda's recent comments that would surely be louder if Geelong as a big club are perceived to screw over the Dogs, another small club with the Saints.
Collingwood were willing to pay Luke Ball more money than their initial negotiations, in order to deter other clubs from drafting him. It wasn't as simple as Geelong fans want to make out. There was a very real threat of some clubs such as Melbourne drafting Ball, until Ball added more money to his contract demands.
Smith's salary demands are not so onerous that a team like Richmond couldn't fit him into their salary cap.
We took that gamble in the Dunkley deal and won.
One that he's willing to take and Dogs fans and the Dogs board are happy to let him take.
The very fact that you have to take contingencies is proof in and of itself that the nature of recruiting him to your list will be different and potentially more onerous, and costly (perhaps in managing your salary cap), than simply trading for him for the contract Smith has already agreed with for you. It is precisely that that the Dogs are leveraging. This is all assuming that both Smith and Connors would be happy to go along with this (rather than being pissed off with Geelong for not paying up) or that it can be successfully executed to the avoidance of all possibility that other clubs will recruit him, which is no guarantee.
You can think that, it's not reflective in reality.
All Dogs fans agree that his worsening form in 2023 largely driven by his poor kicking and his ACL dimishised some of his form. We have to take that form for what it was and it being the most relevant, but we also suspect that he had mentally checked out to some extent once he got played more on the half-forward flank and started getting the idea that he wanted to leave the Dogs, but that doesn't diminish his future output in and abstract sense, and his form pre-mid 2023 was elite for a young player, especially in the context of looking for match-winning performances as opposed to consistent but sub-BOG performanes.
As I've said before, he's gotten 8+ coaches votes, 8 times, all in wins, some in finals. He has totalled 132 coaches' votes in 5 seasons of play from the age of 18. Purely in terms of trade value, that is far more than a mid 1st plus a future 2nd. In comparison to similar deals like Rankine and Cerra, his is a bit below that, but probably just outside the top 10 in the draft with the ACL - a 2nd rounder doesn't improve a "mid 1st" (which becomes a late teens pick with bids/compensation) to a pick just outside the top 10.
Not the Dogs' problem. We will ask for what we ask for in the trade and the ability for Geelong to service that wont change the Dogs' mind. As Dogs fans have pointed out for, you have 44 assets via players and a range of future picks to trade with other teams to build the trades that would satisfy the Dogs.
We circle back to the Dogs' willigness to reject any trade that doesn't either involve both your current and future first or other assets obtained in other trades and let the above play out.
Never claimed it was a factor
See example of trading back into the draft
You do that.
The suggestion that it's a bluff it also an incorrect assumption.
The Dogs were willing to let Dunkley walk to the PSD. We got approval from the board and presented that fact to the Lions. Ergo, it wasn't a bluff, it was sincere. We have to assume the Dogs are taking steps to do something similar for Smith.
Not the Dogs' problem to solve or be worried about
Cool. Dogs can point to the multitude of examples of similar contracts going for a bigger trade haul and Geelong will be the team that appears unreasonable in the act of mediating/discussing restraint of trade measures.
Also, AFL enacting restraint of trade measures: lol. They'll point to the example of players going through the draft as their solution if a trade can't be arranged, as they should, because the Dogs didn't restrain Smith's trade because they clearly were happy to offer him two years to get him to free agency.
We have, in terms of money, or at least money + chance to leave in free agency is equivalent
If you're confident you can walk him through to the draft, fair enough, but Dogs are making a calculated risk that you'd want to avoid that in order to maxmise their trade haul.
It worked with Dunkley and Brisbane.
Nobody would believe you. They would look at the reality that has played out that you have made a commitment to Smith going back to 2022 as per initial journalist reporting and didn't follow through. This is wishful thinking. Any future player would see Geelong as a team that doesn't follow through its commitments to players that they spend over a year recruiting and getting in-principle contract agreements with.
You can claim this but it's not what would happen.
We say this, because on footballing principles he acts as if he played better football than Bont, Libba, Treloar, Dunkley, Macrae, when he didn't. But at the same time, it's possible to still be a very good player but not better than those. We had and still have a very deep midfield with multiple all-Australian players.
To take him to free agency, which would be his preference.
Because in the first five years of his career, he was. Those other players were all-Australian quality. It is possible for him to have been the fourth to sixth best midfielder in our team and still have played as a top 50-75 midfielder in the league. We just had six of the top 75 midfielders in the league in those seasons.
Because we're willing to still pay him a lot of money into the future, on the expectation, as a young player, he improves, and that as the form of the older players drops off, he would have gotten more opportunity in the midfield.
We played Richards in the midfield for the first time in his career this season. We had too deep of a midfield to play him there previously, but with Smith's injury himself, and Macrae's and Daniel's decline in form, there was opportunity. Clearly, Smtih would have gotten more midfield minutes in 2024 than in 2023, had he not done his ACL, and even if his play and form was identical, because we had fewer elite midfielders in totality in the team. That is not a hard concept to grasp, and provides a logical explanation as to the varying amounts we did/would have played Smith in midfield.
Factually untrue. He was BOG with 10 coaches votes with 75% CBA attendance in the Round 10, 2023 fixture vs. Adelaide.
He also played >50% CBA for the last two games of the 2023 season.
Currently we would value him around a single pick about pick 10-12, or combinations of picks that reflect that (not DVI picks and not overvaluing 2nd round picks, but what they're worth in reality).
I would argue that at his peak in early 2022, he was worth a top 3-5 pick, without knowing that his form would decline. This came after Round 10, 2022, where he had just played consecutive 8-coaches votes games in wins. This is after the first 4 games of 2022 he also received coaches votes, which followed immediately after 8 and 9 coaches votes games in the 2021 finals series with only the GF vs Melbourne a blip.
He achieved this all as a 21 year old.
For instance, one publication called him the 42nd best player in the league (linked) in the 2022-23 off-season.
And Dogs fans, not knowing that that would be the peak of his form at the time (why would we not assume that his form would continue?) Probably would not have accepted pick 4 or 5 in a straight swap for him at the time.
So I agree with you that a lot has transpired between then and now. If anything, two pick 11's wouldn't get you pick 3 in a trade, so his form and ACL has resulted in his value dropping by more than half.
Assuming that one of the 2 1st rounders you refer to is your current pick 17 that will be pushed back further with bids, a single 2nd round pick doesn't get that to the value of pick ~11.
All of which would have been considered in your willingness to pay him a million dollar contract, which you've duly offered him.
Supporter trepidation doesn't overcome the realities that Geelong were valuing him as footballer represented by willing to allow him to take up a large amount of your salary cap.
I agree he isn't a sure thing either, and that he has a element of inconsistency and uncertainty in his game. On the other hand, he has been best on ground or close to in finals as a 20 year old in the 2021 finals series, among other top-end performances. That is proven output by someone who is still the same person. That is not unvaluable.
Fair enough. I would suggest that Geelong's steadfast refusal to not trade would factor into Power's risk caclulations.
Doesn't mean he would be that much more likely to accept a lessor trade though.
You could collapse in a heap.
Alternativley, the TAB have you as sixth-favourite for next year's premiership.
In the absence of any better way of predicting the future (as least the TAB have money in the game, rather than empty statements about the potential to collapse in a heap), this is probably worth about pick 14 in current draft terms. It'll be pushed back by bids and compensation picks, but increase in value to pick 13 is more than the decrease to pick 15, so these balance each other outs.
You could collapse in a heap and give us pick 8, but you could also finish sixth, as the TAB are predicting, and merely give pick 15 and 20, not pick 8 and 20.
I agree that your future 1st would hold more value than the current pick 20, lol.
But not because we're banking on a slide. We have to assuem you're approximately the sixth best team next year with your potential to slide not significantly different than the potential for the fifth-best or the seventh-best team to slide.
Making predictions this way is folly. Nobody would have predicted Geelong to make top four, after not making finals in 2023, after people predicted a "slide" following the retirements of players post 2022 to impact the team for more than one season.
All we have to go on is to assume that previous' seasons performances will carry over, to some extent. To predice rises/falls beyond that is folly.
I just asked my Bulldog loving mate that never misses a game what he would think if the Dogs gave up a f1 & f2 to pick up Bailey Smith in this years draft…I can’t post his response
