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There is merit in that suggestion. I've just looked at the situation of all clubs in the draft and the Pies do look like they might need points. They're not going to move until they know they don't need pick 18 to trade for someone but after that, they might be interested in generating more points.
If our situation doesn't change between now and the draft, as I see it picks 26 and 33 essentially give us Blakey. There could be some shifting up or down of a few spots depending on where he's bid at, but that value's pretty trivial.
That means we take picks 38, 39 and 40 into the draft. Those picks are pretty much at the end of the second/very start of the third round, which are still pretty valuable picks.
Assuming we don't have to carry Tippett on the list next year and we stay with a list size of 38, we have three spots to fill. That's effectively just one "live" pick, taking out Blakey and Ronke. But that could increase depending on the futures of Newman, Marsh, Maibaum and Robinson. Rose too - has it been explicitly stated that he's re-signed or has that just been inferred from the club's comments about his NEAFL grand final? So there's a lot yet to happen in terms of list finalisation for next year.
There's also the option of increasing the senior list to 39 or 40. The benefits of carrying a smaller senior list and larger rookie list have diminished somewhat. Salary cap is still a factor, as is one-year contract status of rookies vs two years minimum for drafted players. But the list flexibility reasons are less than they used to be before rookies had to wait for someone to be injured before they could play. If the club has unbudgeted salary cap space for next season, it could choose to draft an extra player in the ND (ie get earlier access to the options). The fact there are very likely to be three retirements at the end of 2019 might factor in too - that makes it easier to reduce the list size back down to 38 for 2020 if needed, without delisting players they'd rather keep.
If our situation doesn't change between now and the draft, as I see it picks 26 and 33 essentially give us Blakey. There could be some shifting up or down of a few spots depending on where he's bid at, but that value's pretty trivial.
That means we take picks 38, 39 and 40 into the draft. Those picks are pretty much at the end of the second/very start of the third round, which are still pretty valuable picks.
Assuming we don't have to carry Tippett on the list next year and we stay with a list size of 38, we have three spots to fill. That's effectively just one "live" pick, taking out Blakey and Ronke. But that could increase depending on the futures of Newman, Marsh, Maibaum and Robinson. Rose too - has it been explicitly stated that he's re-signed or has that just been inferred from the club's comments about his NEAFL grand final? So there's a lot yet to happen in terms of list finalisation for next year.
There's also the option of increasing the senior list to 39 or 40. The benefits of carrying a smaller senior list and larger rookie list have diminished somewhat. Salary cap is still a factor, as is one-year contract status of rookies vs two years minimum for drafted players. But the list flexibility reasons are less than they used to be before rookies had to wait for someone to be injured before they could play. If the club has unbudgeted salary cap space for next season, it could choose to draft an extra player in the ND (ie get earlier access to the options). The fact there are very likely to be three retirements at the end of 2019 might factor in too - that makes it easier to reduce the list size back down to 38 for 2020 if needed, without delisting players they'd rather keep.
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