Beats

If we pull a good player in the PSD, I hope everyone will remember today.

Question for those with more knowledge, can a player nominate the PSD if he isn't in the ND?

If there was a player on an AFL list who could go in the PSD we would have heard about it by now. Unless there's another Jurrah out there we're unlikely to use it.

If thats the case and Frost wanted to go the MFC, why wouldnt he just nominate for the PSD only.

Because we wanted him to train with us for the extra month.

So he played 16 secret games this year ?

What difference does it make where a player was drafted ? That is a single point time and bear no reflection to their actual output - Fyfe was pick 20 and is arguably one of the best footballers in the league - Scully went no 1 and ewwwwwwww...

He only played due to injuries to David and Gilham. Where he was drafted doesn't matter, as you highlight it's the output that matters. He hasn't done anything of positive note in his time in the AFL, he had 11 goals kicked on him by J.Kennedy in round 8.

Lets look at the full picture shall we. Pick 23 and 2 picks back for a player who played two thirds of the year and we see as a future lynch pin of our defense. I dont see what him being a rookie has to do with his current value.

I dont understand what part of "looking at the overall outcome of the trade period and not individual picks" people dont get.

For the record I would have chanced him to the PSD but lets wait and see what we do in the PSD first.

His form should have something to do with his current value. He only played due to injuries to Davis and Gilham. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he had 10 goals kicked on him twice this year. His exposed form is poor.

Edit: Only had 11 goals kicked on him by Kennedy, he was dropped when Riewoldt kicked 11 against them 2 weeks later.

Would the player we would have picked at 23 be of equal or lesser value than Frost? Most likely.

I don't really see the big deal.

Could we have got him for free? Yes. Will they be of equal or greater value? Yes.

He was last in the KPD line at GWS. The only reason he got games was injuries to Gilham(11 games out injured) and Davis(14 games out injured).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he the one who had 10 goals kicked on him by both J.Kennedy and J.Riewoldt this year?

It should have been Frost. If there was anyone worthwhile out of contract it would have been reported through the media. Unlikely we use the PSD pick.

Well that's a big ball of disappointment.

Current outs (5)- Clark, Frawley, Byrnes, Nicholson, Clisby

Current and potential ins (10)- Lumumba, Frost, Garlett, 2,3,40,42(stretch),53,83(jetta), PSD2

Goodbye Strauss, Blease, Tapscott, Evans and Jordie. The money we didn't use on bringing a top level player in will be used on payouts for Jordie and Evans.

AFL website reporting that GWS and Dees are still in discussion for Frost

Maybe a sneak late trade?

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-10-16/live-trade-period-deadline-day

1. 12.43pm: @AFL_petryan reports that slow progress is being made in negotiations between GWS and Melbourne in relation to Sam Frost. He can go through pre-season draft if deal not done. Frost, in his third season at the Giants, played 16 games this season to take his tally to 21. Melbourne won’t be parting with pick No.23 in exchange for him but it might be prepared to slide that pick to get deal done. The Demons have pick 2,3 and 23 and then pick 83 so hard deal to get done.

Surely we cant enter the 2015 season with approx. $1 million spare in the cap.

Roos says we must see improvement and not go through another re-build.

Find a trade, make it happen!

Front loading of contracts, particularly Jones if he re-signs. Payouts of delisted players is another option. If we cut mckenzie/ evans their wage will be included under next years salary cap (assuming clarks payout fell under this years cap as reported in the papers).

I'm expecting him to find it difficult to hold down a roll in the team, especially with the inclusion of HL on the HBF, and the addition of JG in the forward line (I realise Howe isn't a small forward like JG, but JG's inclusion will push someone out).

As you said, he's not the player that will lead the team, so what will his role be? Take a screamer? We will need more than that from him (and all our players) if we are to rise up the ladder.

Personally, I thought he struggled on the HBF this year, which is concerning for the position known as the "easiest to play". He didn't know when to mark or spoil, he doubted himself at contests, which against a decent HFF, will bring you unstuck and will make you a target.

Would have him ahead of Grimes on a HBF, is just as effective at intercepts and provides way more rebound. If he's playing in the backline we choose who matches up on him, if there's concern over his defensive abilities we put him on the least likely to be damaging. JG won't affect Howe in the forwardline, he will keep either one or both of Kent or JKH out of the side. If he's played as a swingman I'd have him in the team ahead of Watts. TBH I'd almost put him ahead of Dawes at CHF, he plays the role better than Dawes does.

What will his role be? Be a role player. Either providing rebounds (was 2nd at mfc behind Dunn in 2014) or I50's.

But unfortunately I just can't see any big improvements next year on the back of this trade period so far.. Looking at this years ladder.. GWS finished with 2 more wins above us.. they have added Griffen, Patfull and have a handful of picks in the top 10 to go with their current list of guns. Then above them? Brisbane.. who arguably now has one of the top 3 midfields in the comp. The gap between them and us IMO will grow and we will be lucky to hold off Saints for 17th spot end of next year.

I'm not confident we will rise up the ladder too far/ get a bunch more wins, but can see us passing at least 2 of the WB, Coll, Ess and Carlton and we will stay above St Kilda. As you say, off the back of trade week GWS and Bris will almost be in the 8.

Hogan, Lumumba and Garlett fill 3 massive holes in our 2014 side. We will have more run and more targets to kick to in the fwd50 (Pedersen/ Howe/ Hogan/ Dawes to play forward) and a player to crumb the dropped marks. We will have the players to play a more attacking game style. Toumpas may surprise some people and be a regular 22 player.

The quote I thought was the most interesting from the Josh Mahoney interview:

""He has developed well at GWS and if we can get a deal tomorrow that is a priority for us, otherwise we will use the pre-season draft to get him," Mahoney said."

It may be the conspiracy theorist in me, but if we don't rate him at pick 23, how would we get a deal done? Especially when he sounds so confident of getting him through the PSD?

GWS's list contracts by 2 and you have to use 3 picks in the ND(5 players out minimum). They've brought in 2(7 players out minimum). They've gotten rid of 6 and Frost will make 7. Interesting part is they've committed to Jack Steele at 24 and Jeremy Finlayson with their last pick. With picks 4,6,7 Steele and Finlayson in the draft they will need to get rid of 2 more players. Possibility of turning pick 2 (Petracca) & 23 in to 6,7 and Frost, while retaining pick 3 for Brayshaw?

But i guess we expect rival clubs want to give these players away when the reality is we'd have to pay massive overs to get an A or B grader who doesn't want to leave...

I don't think people realise rival clubs don't want to give up developed quality players so easily

It's not up to the rival club if you can convince the player to leave. This trade period is/ was the opportunity to poach a big fish. We (should) have the cap space to bring in any player and we have the picks to satisfy any club in a trade.

That's about it for me too. We will start next year with a significantly weaker squad than we had this year, and nothing has been done about the midfield (barring a late miracle).

Not to mention we'll either have picks 2 and 3 or we'll trade for A graders. How is our list going to worse again?

The comparison should be against the teams around us, rather than comparing it 2014. The players we have added fill needs and will make the squad better.... BUT they aren't going to propel us up the ladder.

Personally I can't see us passing many teams. We'll be around the same mark as St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, Carlton. There may be another team which drops off significantly but can't see that happening. Unless multiple young players significantly improve we're a lock for the bottom 4 again next year.

You've clearly put a lot of thought and effort in to the above post, but I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The way I see it footballers aren't employees, they're the product the football club(business) is selling. When the volume of products you sell is limited you want to make the biggest possible return from what you're selling. Unfortunately, if you think you can make more by bringing in a consistently good product at the expense of an old favorite, returns wise you do it.

Brayshaw, Petracca or Wright.

That's the reason I ask because "I believe" that the hold up on this whole 3 way deal is not the Beams situation but a bickering over lesser picks. Will be very surprised if the deal only involves the 3 players with no other picks exchanged

Board member with two first names? Not sure we have one of those - http://www.melbournefc.com.au/the-club/people/board-members

If I was to take a stab I'd say Hannebery, but that's wishful thinking.

Didn't think they were allowed to trade?

They're not allowed to trade in players*, if they do they lose their COLA. They can trade in picks.

*they can bring in players, but it will be at the AFL's discretion whether they lose their COLA. ie. they could take blease and not lose it, but would lose it if they got N.Jones.

Edit:

Thinking aloud again - Sydney have the midfield depth to cover the loss of 2 players. They're also bringing in a top 5 talent mid (Heeney) and have Lloyd Perris (highly rated in 2013) waiting in the wings. If they can get a top 5 pick and 2 picks between 10-25 I'd think they'd take it and run.

You know the Dees were adamant that Richmond approached them, and the trade was essentially up to Jack. Could it be that this 'magical behind the scenes riddling trade' is actually separate?

As a few on here have guessed, if Sydney is the trading partner we'd need to stump up picks. JT would have been an avenue to getting the right picks needed, if Sydney is the unnamed trade partner I'd expect Watts and Toumpas to be shopped as a way of us getting additional 1st round picks.

Being reported on Trade radio as we speak that the deal is all but done.

Don't have access to the radio, what deal?

Based on the riddles Parker and Hannebery? If one of them knocks it back Mitchell as a back up?

Edit:

Justification -

2 players who would walk in as the best players on our list (or at least close enough to be). If one of them falls through it leaves the less experienced, likely A-grader in Mitchell.

Comes in black and white but not a little bird - Sydney - although just as easily could be the power(b&w jumper), the eagles(big bird in b&w) and less likely the crows, the bulldogs and the cats, all come in b&w and are not little birds (crows aren't much bigger than magpies though...)

Tick tock, black mouse, electric clock. Lancelot, feathers and fur, bidding of his sir.

I'm completely thrown by the Lancelot reference (could be the white knight/ could be finding the holy grail/ could be bonking his masters wife...), however I believe that this is referencing deals that we are waiting on. Someone going to the power and Mitch Clark (He was the white knight at one point) waiting for us to trade him to the cats or hawks/pies?

Building upon this/ thinking aloud, we offered up a combination of 3,23 and players for the two, but with trade ban we are now searching for picks to use instead of players. We could have thrown up watts(outside class to replace malceski), 3 and 23, possibly a toumpas/ trengove type as well. Now they can't take players it'll be 3, a first rounder we receive from port and Geelong/ hawks/ pies 2nd rounder.

It is often mentioned that Roos has said something to the effect of not wanting too many kids, does anyone actually have the quote. As i wonder if he was referring to light underdeveloped players as opposed to some of the big bodied draftees available.

The quote was that he didn't draft talls out of the TAC. The reasons being that TAC rules don't allow flooding/ double teaming and that you don't know what the quality of opposition they're playing on is like each week, eg one week they're on someone the same size, the next they're playing on someone a foot shorter than them.

I work with the father of a Collingwood player, the mail he passes on is all Collingwood related and it's normally on the mark. He said the reasons for Beams wanting out were Money, Buckley and his dad(as said earlier, is in remission), in that order. Brisbane threw a $200-$250k pay rise (from 600ish to 800ish) at him and the opportunity to play with his brother and be close to family was hard to pass up. Hasn't heard anything about Beams to Melbourne from his son though.

If Trengove + 23 for 12 is true and it is part of a play to lure Beams it likely results in Brayshaw and pick 83 (or the PSD) being our only live draft picks. I can't see us having the currency (either money or picks wise) to bring in another big name like Dangerfield etc. Beams and Lumumba will chew up a bit of the salary cap space we have, meaning a decent PSD pick is unlikely. Would hope we could get the tigers 3rd round pick(52) as part of the Trengove deal so that we're not using pick 83 as a live pick.

It would mean:

Players out: Clark, Frawley, Byrnes, Clisby, Nicholson, Strauss, Blease, Trengove; picks 3,23,61,79

Players in: Beams, Frost, Lumumba, Garlett; picks 2(Brayshaw), 41(Stretch), 83(?), 97(Jetta)

Unless we think we can find something better than Tapscott with pick 97 he gets a 1 year deal. Evans/ Mckenzie lucky not to have their remaining year terminated, but we simply don't have the currency to get something worth getting rid of them early for. There is a lot of unrealised talent in the outs. It will hurt if some of them come good, but the reality is that they haven't produced

In term of changes to the 2015 team, we had Frawley, Bail, M.Jones, Mckenzie and Terlich play a combined 86 games this year. If we can get that amount of games out of Hogan, Garlett, Lumumba, Beams and Frost (combined for 65 in 2014) we're a better team. Add development from younger players and we should get a few more wins on the board.

Melbourne have stuffed a lot of drafts but every team would have taken Trengove and Scully at picks 1 and 2.

Martin's stocks rose late, Scully was pretty much guaranteed to be one, other teams would have taken Martin at 2.

As others have said, if we do it, the pick will be used as part of a larger trade.

Think of the larger trade as pick 3, pick 23 and Trengove for player X and a pick to on trade for Frost.

Joel Patfull was traded for pick 21.

This will be a good point for future reference when people say that we got 'overs' for Frawley as pick 21 is likely what we would have got under band 2 compensation.

Patfull is a good player, but Frawley is 4 years younger, is physically bigger (4cm/ 6 kg) on a bigger contract and despite Patfull's 2x b&f's it is hard to argue that he is at Frawley's level.

Never seen him play, but what does he bring that Fitzy doesn't?

Nb. I'm not saying Fitzy is a star, but is this bloke better than him?

Talent wise, Fitzy is the better player. All factors considered you'd probably take Grimley. Fitzy has type 1 diabetes and was suffering from chronic fatigue during the year, the combination of those two afflictions has probably made it difficult for him to put on weight/ work to the levels needed of an AFL footballer. Meanwhile, Grimley is a very solid kid with little to no health concerns.

Mids

Cheers for that helpful input. You seem like a super human being.