Regrets, I've had a few, but then again there's three cups to mention... - Former Tiger Trade Debates

[Number8]

If you want to leverage price, you need multiple bidders - only the Saints wanted him, and only for a late pick.

Dunno why we need to go over the same tired ground.

There were two parties. No-one had a gun at our head telling us to trade Butler. It was our choice, our mistake in my opinion, to take a low pick for a player of proven quality.

Should have kept him. Would have been interesting to see if St Kilda could have magically found a future second-rounder, which was closer to Butler's worth.

The simple truth is he couldn't stay in the side because his AFL form was terrible.

A reminder that Rioli was dropped twice in 2019 and twice in 2020.

Tom Papley had a run of seven games in 2020 where he kicked a total of three goals and laid a total of 17 tackles.

Butler's seven games, on which you have sacked him, yielded five goals and 27 tackles.

Forward pocket is a hard position to play.

Pick 56 for Dan Butler is, was and will always be a junk decision, no matter which way you cut it.

 

[Dont Argue]

Dunno why we need to go over the same tired ground.

There were two parties. No-one had a gun at our head telling us to trade Butler. It was our choice, our mistake in my opinion, to take a low pick for a player of proven quality.

Should have kept him. Would have been interesting to see if St Kilda could have magically found a future second-rounder, which was closer to Butler's worth.

A reminder that Rioli was dropped twice in 2019 and twice in 2020.

Tom Papley had a run of seven games in 2020 where he kicked a total of three goals and laid a total of 17 tackles.

Butler's seven games, on which you have sacked him, yielded five goals and 27 tackles.

Forward pocket is a hard position to play.

Pick 56 for Dan Butler is, was and will always be a junk decision, no matter which way you cut it.

On a serious note, using your logic, what value would you suggest our 2017 Premiership hero Jacob Townsend was worth when we let him go to Essendon?

 

[Number8]

On a serious note, using your logic, what value would you suggest our 2017 Premiership hero Jacob Townsend was worth when we let him go to Essendon?

How much better did Townsend make Essendon compared with how much better Butler has made St Kilda? There's your answer.

 

[Bullarto Tiger]

I'm not disappointed RFC traded/let go Higgins.
Don't reckon he would have got significant game-time with this current list.
I might be limited in my understanding of his skills-set, but I don't see a long-term future for him at the elite level.
He will have a pretty good year with the Saints in 2021 as he will have something to prove, but opposition teams will work him out pretty quickly and I can see his output dropping significantly.
But what would I know???

 

[TigerMasochist]

Dunno why we need to go over the same tired ground.

There were two parties. No-one had a gun at our head telling us to trade Butler. It was our choice, our mistake in my opinion, to take a low pick for a player of proven quality.

Should have kept him. Would have been interesting to see if St Kilda could have magically found a future second-rounder, which was closer to Butler's worth.

A reminder that Rioli was dropped twice in 2019 and twice in 2020.

Tom Papley had a run of seven games in 2020 where he kicked a total of three goals and laid a total of 17 tackles.

Butler's seven games, on which you have sacked him, yielded five goals and 27 tackles.

Forward pocket is a hard position to play.

Pick 56 for Dan Butler is, was and will always be a junk decision, no matter which way you cut it.

So what do you do with a ' left over " player who can't get regular game time in your best squad. Either because his form is not where it needs to be or perhaps he's stopped playing the team way you want him to play, but you have a bunch of similarly talented young hungry hard working players who will play the way you want.
Do you trade him out to a mediocre club for what you can get n hope he doesn't embarrass you too much while he continues his career. Or do you just park him in the magoos for a couple of years where he becomes a rusted on magoos player while fervently hoping you will somehow snaffle a first round draft pick for what has gradually become a list clogger.
Good luck to Geezer, he helped us win the breakthrough first flag of three n then tapered off. We might not have scored some massive bonearse from trading him to the Aints but at least everyone got something out of the deal.

 

[DuD_Delist]

True value of Butler will be seen this year.Now that he feels comfortable.

 

[AngryAnt]

Dunno why we need to go over the same tired ground.

Whenever this tired old topic comes up I feel the same way

Why keep a player who isn't getting games, wants to leave and is unlikely to get regular senior games in the future. He was surplus to requirements. Sure, we could be dicks like Essendon and try to "win" every deal and be able to say "we screwed you". As people keep telling you, the Saints had higher trading priorities than Dan.

Imagine if we'd kept him and he was running round in the seconds last year. Actually there were no seconds. How do you reckon he'd feel about that if we'd said "sorry Dan, we couldn't get a high second rounder for you so you can do your time in lockdown without getting a game". And his currency would be even lower than it was two years ago.

Now we have a ex-Tige doing well in his career, we have a good trading relationship with the Saints, we have a more than adequate replacement in a guy like Aarts, and we keep winning flags.

 

[Dont Argue]

How much better did Townsend make Essendon compared with how much better Butler has made St Kilda? There's your answer.

So you use hindsight as your formula?
This exposes the ridiculous logic of your argument.
When a player leaves us and performs well, we gave him away for peanuts but when he doesn’t we got fair value!
Think I’ll leave it there.

 

[tigerfan1961]

Dunno why we need to go over the same tired ground.

There were two parties. No-one had a gun at our head telling us to trade Butler. It was our choice, our mistake in my opinion, to take a low pick for a player of proven quality.

Should have kept him. Would have been interesting to see if St Kilda could have magically found a future second-rounder, which was closer to Butler's worth.

A reminder that Rioli was dropped twice in 2019 and twice in 2020.

Tom Papley had a run of seven games in 2020 where he kicked a total of three goals and laid a total of 17 tackles.

Butler's seven games, on which you have sacked him, yielded five goals and 27 tackles.

Forward pocket is a hard position to play.

Pick 56 for Dan Butler is, was and will always be a junk decision, no matter which way you cut it.

Mate, he was out of contract and could walk if he wanted, and I’m pretty sure he would have. Keep him you say? your
argument is too simplistic when the player is out of contract. He likely saw he’d struggle to get past others and explored other options.
worth more than pick 56? Sure, but no contract and no other suitors meant we had to take what they offered or we got nothing.
I get that you’re a big fan of his, but on his form over the previous two seasons, I was happy to let him go as I couldn’t see him forcing any of the other small forwards out of the side. I’d still have Rioli and George ahead of him, but that’s just my judgement, which you’ll likely disagree with.

 

[tigerfan1961]

So you use hindsight as your formula?
This exposes the ridiculous logic of your argument.
When a player leaves us and performs well, we gave him away for peanuts but when he doesn’t we got fair value!
Think I’ll leave it there.

Beat me to it, spot on

 

[Number8]

Sure, we could be dicks like Essendon and try to "win" every deal and be able to say "we screwed you".

Nowhere and at no time have I said or even implied this should be the goal. I don't give a fig about most trades because, in the main, they tend to be reasonable. That this one wasn't, and has proven to be so, means it can and should be called out. Nothing wrong with holding the club to account when it makes an error. Not everything we do as an organisation will be perfect.

In any event, how would a future second round pick, for instance, as a trade for Butler be screwing anyone?

Imagine if we'd kept him and he was running round in the seconds last year.

Imagine if we'd kept him, he regained form and was set to play round one this year?

So you use hindsight as your formula?

No mate, from the moment the Butler trade was announced I called out the minimum chips compensation and have repeated that ad nauseam in this thread. It's getting boring.

It's OK to say you were happy with pick 56 at the time if that's how you truly felt. I wasn't. It was a junk pick for a proven player who was always going to make a decent opponent better ... and has. Bad business.

If anything good comes of it, we won't be so profligate in the future.

Mate, he was out of contract and could walk if he wanted, and I’m pretty sure he would have.

As I've previously said, it was a mistake to not offer Butler a contract in the first instance and then, in the face of a junk pick as compensation, not to have at least explored other options. Whether that was seeking a future pick from the Saints or finding a way to retain Butler on the list it seems we just wanted him gone ... so much so that St Kilda got him for a steal.

worth more than pick 56? Sure

That is all I'm arguing.

I’d still have Rioli and George ahead of him, but that’s just my judgement, which you’ll likely disagree with.

Castagna is a jet. Rioli is maybe in front of Butler but it's arguable—was then and is now. The question for me is more around Aarts, Stack, Higgins, Naish and others who were preferred for opportunities over Butler at the time. I had and still have Butler in front of all that lot for varying reasons.

 

[Quickdraw]

Swings and roundabouts in my view. You win some, you lose some (unless you're Dudoro at the Druggies).

What did Houli cost us?
What did Grigga cost us?
What did Towner cost us?

Yes, Butts was worth more than what we got but we didn't. Bad luck. Move on.

 

[DavidSSS]

Just one of those things I reckon. With Butler I think we should have got better than pick 56 for him but that was all that was on offer. He was a premiership player, had shown he could play and then got an injury which takes time to recover from. Should we have got more for him? I would say yes. Could we have got more for him? In the situation at the time, no.

On balance and given he would be unlikely to have been picked in the seniors letting him go was the right thing to do. He gets a chance to be at a club where opportunities will be greater and we aren't list clogging or messing around a player who had contributed to a flag.

Where I think the issue of compensation for losing a player is more of a problem is the way you get compensated by the AFL if a player walks, this certainly appears, as an observer, to be a lot more random than the AFL's claims of some formula to work out compensation would suggest.

DS

 

[CarnTheTiges]

Swings and roundabouts in my view. You win some, you lose some (unless you're Dudoro at the Druggies).

What did Houli cost us?
What did Grigga cost us?
What did Towner cost us?

Yes, Butts was worth more than what we got but we didn't. Bad luck. Move on.

And what did Nank cost us? You think the Swans looked at him in ‘17 and thought damn, shoulda got the Tigers to cough up a higher pick! And because of Dodoro we got Houli for nothing in the PSD, which is what could have happened with Butler if we’d tried to squeeze the Aints.

 

[TT33]

Just one of those things I reckon. With Butler I think we should have got better than pick 56 for him but that was all that was on offer. He was a premiership player, had shown he could play and then got an injury which takes time to recover from. Should we have got more for him? I would say yes. Could we have got more for him? In the situation at the time, no.

On balance and given he would be unlikely to have been picked in the seniors letting him go was the right thing to do. He gets a chance to be at a club where opportunities will be greater and we aren't list clogging or messing around a player who had contributed to a flag.

Where I think the issue of compensation for losing a player is more of a problem is the way you get compensated by the AFL if a player walks, this certainly appears, as an observer, to be a lot more random than the AFL's claims of some formula to work out compensation would suggest.

DS

Yep it's a formula that does have a "fixed" element to it.

 

[AngryAnt]

Nowhere and at no time have I said or even implied this should be the goal. I don't give a fig about most trades because, in the main, they tend to be reasonable. That this one wasn't, and has proven to be so, means it can and should be called out. Nothing wrong with holding the club to account when it makes an error. Not everything we do as an organisation will be perfect.

In any event, how would a future second round pick, for instance, as a trade for Butler be screwing anyone?

Imagine if we'd kept him, he regained form and was set to play round one this year?

Pick 56 for an uncontracted player who couldn't get a regular game in the seniors and no interest apart the Saints after they got all their other trades done was perfectly reasonable at the time, and still is. If you want to call it a win for the Saints I get that, it was a good trade for them and he's fit into that side well.

Like you say this topic has been done to death, so sayonara

 

[mrposhman]

Nowhere and at no time have I said or even implied this should be the goal. I don't give a fig about most trades because, in the main, they tend to be reasonable. That this one wasn't, and has proven to be so, means it can and should be called out. Nothing wrong with holding the club to account when it makes an error. Not everything we do as an organisation will be perfect.

In any event, how would a future second round pick, for instance, as a trade for Butler be screwing anyone?

Imagine if we'd kept him, he regained form and was set to play round one this year?

No mate, from the moment the Butler trade was announced I called out the minimum chips compensation and have repeated that ad nauseam in this thread. It's getting boring.

It's OK to say you were happy with pick 56 at the time if that's how you truly felt. I wasn't. It was a junk pick for a proven player who was always going to make a decent opponent better ... and has. Bad business.

If anything good comes of it, we won't be so profligate in the future.

As I've previously said, it was a mistake to not offer Butler a contract in the first instance and then, in the face of a junk pick as compensation, not to have at least explored other options. Whether that was seeking a future pick from the Saints or finding a way to retain Butler on the list it seems we just wanted him gone ... so much so that St Kilda got him for a steal.

That is all I'm arguing.

Castagna is a jet. Rioli is maybe in front of Butler but it's arguable—was then and is now. The question for me is more around Aarts, Stack, Higgins, Naish and others who were preferred for opportunities over Butler at the time. I had and still have Butler in front of all that lot for varying reasons.

So in your theory, the fact that the Saints didn't have a future 2nd? How would they give us one?

 

[CarnTheTiges]

So in your theory, the fact that the Saints didn't have a future 2nd? How would they give us one?

I assume the theory is that they would have found one if they really really wanted him, but I don’t think they wanted him that badly. It was basically pick 56 or nothing, and if he was out of contract he could have put himself in the PSD and we get nothing ala Houli.

 

[Number8]

Pick 56 for an uncontracted player who couldn't get a regular game in the seniors and no interest apart the Saints after they got all their other trades done was perfectly reasonable at the time, and still is.

No. Pick 56 for a proven player on the best list in the land never, ever looked reasonable.

Not getting a game at Richmond is not like not getting a game at North Melbourne. Too simplistic.

So is the idea that St Kilda had nothing left in their kitbag. With future draft picks and swapping of round picks, the notion we had to take what they had left in 2019's draft is unimaginative. The options were endless. From memory, St Kilda actually took a third round pick to the 2019 draft that was better than pick 56. How did we at least not end up with that?

All of this actually comes back to the central proposition of anyone who says we played our hand well in this trade: Butler fluked 2017 out of his arse. He was never really any good. I mean, look at those seven games in 2019. Lousy. How did he ever get a spot on our list, let alone get a game, let alone play in a flag, let alone be a central part of a dynamic forward line that changed the game? Now that we've seen his true colours, let's make him St Kilda's problem and run like we stole something ...

The undervaluing of our fringe players is a developing trend. It bugs me because I quite like winning flags. It smacks of people being a bit too pleased with themselves and I hope we've seen the back of it.

It could be Dan Butler's parting gift to us.

 

[AngryAnt]

No. Pick 56 for a proven player on the best list in the land never, ever looked reasonable.

Not getting a game at Richmond is not like not getting a game at North Melbourne. Too simplistic.

So is the idea that St Kilda had nothing left in their kitbag. With future draft picks and swapping of round picks, the notion we had to take what they had left in 2019's draft is unimaginative. The options were endless. From memory, St Kilda actually took a third round pick to the 2019 draft that was better than pick 56. How did we at least not end up with that?

All of this actually comes back to the central proposition of anyone who says we played our hand well in this trade: Butler fluked 2017 out of his arse. He was never really any good. I mean, look at those seven games in 2019. Lousy. How did he ever get a spot on our list, let alone get a game, let alone play in a flag, let alone be a central part of a dynamic forward line that changed the game? Now that we've seen his true colours, let's make him St Kilda's problem and run like we stole something ...

The undervaluing of our fringe players is a developing trend. It bugs me because I quite like winning flags. It smacks of people being a bit too pleased with themselves and I hope we've seen the back of it.

It could be Dan Butler's parting gift to us.

Nothing we do or think has an impact on how RFC organises its trades I'd suggest. And I'll think you'll struggle to find anyone who who thinks "we played our hand well" - it was a late pick, he was uncontracted, we didn't want to offer him one or he didn't want one or both, pushing the saints hard would have resulted in frustration all round.

Given how superbly well we've drafted and traded in the last four 5 years I can't really see the fantasy of having a future second-rounder for Dan B coming to bite us.

Here's a challenge for ya No. 8 - find me an example of an uncontracted player who played seven games in a season who got traded for a second rounder. This will tell the story of how realistic all this is.