Well see here I disagree. Trading out long or butler for Saad or Papley is the opposite. You're trading out youth and potential for proven good players.
I also believe the premise of this rumour is that it's not the only trade that will happen. Say if Ross gets RCD and CCJ and then a Williams or Viney is picked up via FA is that an overall short term and long term improvement? Yes.
All hypothetical obviously
I can agree with that. List management is an overall picture not a single trade. In a scenario like that we could get a FA anyway. Unless a Ross trade leads to the picks we absolutely need to bring in youth AND someone of equal value I struggle to see the point.
In your scenario they're two different transaction, Ross for youth. FA for experience. With something like that we could keep Ross and grab a FA and use existing picks plus less than AFL quality players to grab youth.
There's more to it in terms of what youth we can grab and what the costs are but I'd trust gags and co to be able to get a FA, keep Ross and be able to grab any youth that wants to come to us.
Again its a big picture so we might need Ross picks to grab youth but I think the club should resist the easy option if trading Ross for youth because they can.