I was thinking more along the lines of you recommend I buy Rio Tinto shares when they were $20 & sell when they get to $23 so I can buy a highly speculative tech stock!
Top-10 draft picks aren't highly speculative stock, they're what's likely to bring you a truly elite player. Say we draft Brayshaw. You wouldn't give up Newnes and a 2nd rounder to get Durdin or one of the other handful of top KPPs in this draft?
Once again Pelchen's comment about getting further draft selections has been misinterpreted. It was 6 first round selections over a 3 year period (incl last year). 3 of those 6 were taken last year & some believe that Longer's unexpected addition is worth another.
Look disagree with my opinion all you want, I don't mind that (although people outright saying it's crap is a bit needlessly offensive).
But don't give me this pish about me misinterpreting Pelchen.
Here's the letter:
http://www.saints.com.au/news/2013-10-11/pelchens-open-letter-to-members
And here's the statement:
"Our strategy includes
increasing our draft activity by 50% in the
first 3 rounds of the AFL National Draft over the
next four years. Initially, our plan was to secure three selections inside 20 at this year's draft - an outcome we remain determined to achieve prior to the end of the 2013 AFL Trade Period."
He only makes reference to the first round when he discussed the initial kick-start, which was 3 first rounders in 2013 which they undoubtedly at the time of writing pretty much knew they'd achieved. The letter hit my inbox barely 24 hours after they traded Big-Boy; they'd have known then that the Hawks deal was including a swap of the additional Buddy comp pick - they would have been pretty certain that Buddy wasn't going to garner top comp (if he did then I think Hawthorn would have arranged the deal to give us something else instead). Remember it was then many days later before it was officially confirmed we got the other 1st rounder, but Pelchen already knew he had it in the bank when he (very cleverly) publicly set himself the aim.
I digress...
Increasing by 50%, first 3 rounds, next four years. So that's 4 drafts x 3 rounds = 12 picks. Increase by 50% = 18 picks.
I'd say for 2013 whilst they only had the 3 picks in that space, I would say Longer counts towards it as an unexpected bonus, and so does Eli since they had him ranked to go in the top 30 or so. So I'd go with saying they bagged 5 of their intended 18 this year.
That means 9 picks left to use in the next 3 drafts at the moment, but their aim is 13 - i.e. they need to find 4 more draft picks from somewhere. Ideally good ones.
Disagree with my opinion but don't make out that I'm outright lying when the facts are there in black and white!