The Saints, who against North Melbourne on Saturday slumped to their 11th consecutive loss, are committed to a long-term regeneration of their list via the draft, Richardson said on The Sunday Footy Show.
"Philosophically, we won't look at free agency for a couple of years; we'll be going to the draft," he said.
"We think that the model that we've decided to go down is the right way and that is to get in young players, to be patient, to make sure that we get games into these young players.
"As much as any club in the competition we have no illusions about where we're at.
"You only have to look at the decisions the club made at the end of last year to get rid of a couple of former champions of the club to make sure that we can do the right thing strategically and get into the front end of the draft.
"With that we've got (Luke) Dunstan, we've got (Jack) Billings, (Blake) Acres we haven't seen a lot of, (Eli) Templeton's a rookie but he's shown a lot of promise.
"That's pretty clearly our direction. We know it's going to take a while. We need to get games into these guys but we think our future's pretty exciting."
In March, St Kilda unveiled a plan to win its second premiership by 2020 – a goal that Richardson has no doubt is achievable.
"That's absolutely realistic," he said.
"As long as we're prepared to stick fat as a footy club and stay the course and continue to go to the draft and keep bringing in quality players, then I've got no doubt that we can be in those sort of positions."
