BRETT Ratten doesn't know if Carlton has an offer on the table for Travis Cloke, but he expects the Collingwood forward to sign a new contract with the Pies 'very soon' in any case.

A report in The Australian on Monday suggested the Blues had joined Fremantle and Melbourne as bidders for Cloke's services as protracted talks between his management and Collingwood continue to be played out in public.

Ratten is open to the idea of luring the power forward away from his club's arch rivals, but doubted it was a realistic scenario.

"I'm not 100 per cent sure," Ratten replied when asked if Carlton had joined the hunt for Cloke's signature.

"We had list management [meetings] about six weeks ago where we talk about players out of contract. Whether something has happened behind the scenes [I don't know].

"We probably expect Travis to sign with Collingwood very soon, but … if there's a good player out there and they want to leave we'd be interested to talk."

The Blues landed a big fish in trade week ahead of the 2008 season when Chris Judd moved from West Coast, but Ratten said that was a very different situation.

"I expect them all to re-sign," he said of players coming out of contract.

"There's not too many [star players] that leave clubs are there? When you go through history there's not too many unless they're disgruntled. You don't see some of the champs of the game or the elite players or All Australians moving clubs.

"Chris wanted to come home, but other than that they just don't move to go across town.

"It usually doesn't happen, but I'm not saying never."

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs