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I find renumbering of draft picks during trade week and on draft night to be confusing. Sure, it's a sequence, but the sequence changes during trade week due to free agents, and during the draft due to bid matching. It's hard to discuss pick 12 when it suddenly becomes pick 13 because another pick was inserted after pick 7. If there was an additional systematic way of numbering picks, it would be possible to insert picks without changing the underlying sequence.
There is an informal description already (eg: first-round pick tied to Sydney Swans) but an additional numeric identifier may be useful. Something as simple as 7.0 = pick 7, 7.1 = compensation pick after pick 7, 8.0 = pick 9 etc.
With such a system, the first round of the 2024 draft currently looks like this:
1.0 Richmond
2.0 North Melbourne
3.0 Carlton (tied to West Coast)
4.0 Adelaide
5.0 Melbourne
6.0 Richmond (tied to Gold Coast)
7.0 St Kilda
7.1 St Kilda - FA compensation
8.0 Melbourne (tied to Essendon)
9.0 Richmond (tied to Fremantle)
10.0 Richmond (tied to Collingwood)
11.0 West Coast (tied to Carlton)
12.0 Port Adelaide (tied to Western Bulldogs)
13.0 Fremantle (tied to Hawthorn)
14.0 GWS Giants
14.1 GWS Giants - FA compensation
15.0 Western Bulldogs (tied to Geelong)
16.0 Richmond (tied to Port Adelaide)
17.0 Sydney
18.0 Richmond (tied to Brisbane Lions)
18.14 GWS Giants - FA compensation
18.19 Sydney - North Melbourne assistance pick
18.20 Richmond - North Melbourne assistance pick
With this system, it is possible to identify the original first round picks because they all end in ".0". End of round compensation picks are inserted with the ranking of the team (18.14) and the assistance picks originally given to North Melbourne are numbered starting with 19 because they are inserted after the FA compensation picks. In particular, there was a lack of clarity over where the end of first round compensation picks would end up, and this is clarified by this system.
While this is not perfect (draft night would mess this up a bit), it largely avoids the renumbering of all picks that occurs during trade week and draft nights.
There is an informal description already (eg: first-round pick tied to Sydney Swans) but an additional numeric identifier may be useful. Something as simple as 7.0 = pick 7, 7.1 = compensation pick after pick 7, 8.0 = pick 9 etc.
With such a system, the first round of the 2024 draft currently looks like this:
1.0 Richmond
2.0 North Melbourne
3.0 Carlton (tied to West Coast)
4.0 Adelaide
5.0 Melbourne
6.0 Richmond (tied to Gold Coast)
7.0 St Kilda
7.1 St Kilda - FA compensation
8.0 Melbourne (tied to Essendon)
9.0 Richmond (tied to Fremantle)
10.0 Richmond (tied to Collingwood)
11.0 West Coast (tied to Carlton)
12.0 Port Adelaide (tied to Western Bulldogs)
13.0 Fremantle (tied to Hawthorn)
14.0 GWS Giants
14.1 GWS Giants - FA compensation
15.0 Western Bulldogs (tied to Geelong)
16.0 Richmond (tied to Port Adelaide)
17.0 Sydney
18.0 Richmond (tied to Brisbane Lions)
18.14 GWS Giants - FA compensation
18.19 Sydney - North Melbourne assistance pick
18.20 Richmond - North Melbourne assistance pick
With this system, it is possible to identify the original first round picks because they all end in ".0". End of round compensation picks are inserted with the ranking of the team (18.14) and the assistance picks originally given to North Melbourne are numbered starting with 19 because they are inserted after the FA compensation picks. In particular, there was a lack of clarity over where the end of first round compensation picks would end up, and this is clarified by this system.
While this is not perfect (draft night would mess this up a bit), it largely avoids the renumbering of all picks that occurs during trade week and draft nights.