Watters said after Sunday's 68-point loss to North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium the Saints needed better midfield depth after being exposed, particularly in the first quarter.
On Wednesday, he said the club would leave no stone unturned in stocking up players likely to be under the age of 26, after an unsuccessful recruiting period between 2006 and 2010 which has left the list with holes in it.
"You have to look at all options – the options that are available to you, obviously recruiting, obviously trading, free agency, you explore everything," Watters said.
"We will explore everything.
"Our club from 2006 to 2010 … we've got the worst retention rate from a recruitment point of view if you look at what we've recruited in that time and what remains at the club."
From that time, which includes five trade periods, national and rookie drafts, the Saints have just 12 players recruited still at the club.
By contrast, Hawthorn, who had a similar level of success to St Kilda in that time, has 19 players left from the same period while 2010 premier Collingwood has 18.
Over the past two years, they've picked up mature-age players such as Ahmed Saad, Terry Milera, Trent Dennis-Lane, Beau Maister, Tom Lee and Tom Hickey to bolster the forward and ruck stocks, as well as a number of emerging youngsters including Nathan Wright, Seb Ross, Jack Newnes and Spencer White.
"We need to improve our list. We don't shy away from that; we think over the last 18 months we've exposed a lot of players that are going to help us and certainly build a good foundation for us," Watters said.
"But we also know that we need to attract new talent to the club. We have to improve and we look forward to that opportunity at the end of the year."
The average age of the Saints' list is 24 years and 34 days but there is a raft of players set to retire in the coming years.
Watters said the current demographic dictated that players over 26 "probably don't fit in with where we're going".
He said there was no quick fix but was confident the club had already made inroads in addressing the problems left by the bad retention rate of the disappointing recruiting period.
"We've made some improvements to our list already; we've increased our ruck stocks and whilst it might not be clearly evident through our forwards yet because Tom Lee and Spencer White haven't played a lot of footy, they're going to be good players for this club.
"The forward stocks, there's a bit more progression there but we need to increase the depth of our midfield and increase some of our defensive stocks.
"You can't do it all in one hit but we're working through it."
Jennifer Phelan is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenPhelan.
