I've done another of my ridiculously long fantasy end of year trade scenarios below, so please skip this if you're not into it.
Based on us looking like finishing higher than originally anticipated and the odds of Thomas going very early getting shorter, I've had a crack at trading our first out for an established player. Then taking Thomas, Scott and Crocker, which means moving on some players with currency in order to achieve the required points. Also going hard for free agent midfielders - anyone who will still be on the list by 2021 I've considered.
The draft picks in the trades are based on my ladder predictor and last year's trades of 2018 picks, so you'll just have to trust me on those. I now have us finishing 8th, so we start with picks 11, 29, 39 (StK), 46 (WC), 65, 83 & 101.
Trade 1 - Hrovat improves, but we see other players overtaking him. Carlton still has more need for players with solid scoring involvements and can pick up Hrovat for basically nothing. Hrovat and picks 83 & 101 to Carlton for pick 68.
Trade 2 - Adelaide lose Sloane to free agency and are looking for a midfielder to replace him. Dumont has improved again this year, but we see other players overtaking him, so we send him home for Adelaide's pick 37.
Trade 3 - We pull off a huge coup, landing Wines and pick 47 from Port Adelaide at the cost of picks 11, 29 & 68. Wines equivalent to pick 6.
Trade 4 - Mountford continues to improve, but seeks a trade home. We trade Mountford to West Coast for pick 64.
Trade 5 - Goldy has a good year, but we decide Preuss is the future and move Goldy on. Geelong look for a better ruck to make the most of their midfield whilst they still have it. We trade Goldy to Geelong for picks 50 & 54. Goldy equivalent to pick 36.
After those trades we have picks 37, 39, 46, 47, 50, 54, 64 & 65, which have 2,260 points attached. However we are going to the draft needing only 3 picks, so we do a range of picks swaps to reduce that. I did a handful of trades, which I won't bother listing here, that turned these 8 picks into picks 20, 28 & 34, which have 2,131 points attached. In the draft, I worked on Thomas, Scott and Crocker being bid on at picks 7, 24 & 53 respectively. After discounts, the points required on those bids is 2,130. So we pick up all 3 without any deficits carrying over into 2019.
Free agency 1 - We pick up Sloane from Adelaide. Whilst it would be great if he were a year or two younger, he still has plenty of good football left in him - we offer him a 4 year contract and he's still only 32 in the last year of that contract (2022). Is also a leader and would be a great addition to the club.
Free agency 2 - We pick up Gaff from West Coast. Whilst our outside run has improved, it still needs further improvement and Gaff has shown this year he is a high quality footballer.
We also upgrade Zurhaar, with Waite retiring, and Morgan and Watson being delisted. Watson is unlucky due to his injury, so we may re-rookie him.
In all, our 2018 list movements are:
Out: Waite (retire), Morgan and Watson (delisted), Hrovat, Dumont, Mountford & Goldstein (traded)
In: Wines, Sloane, Gaff, TT, Scott, Crocker and Zurhaar. Also a rookie x 1, replacing Zurhaar's promotion to the main list, possibly Watson. Assuming no other team takes McGuinness and Mansell in the national draft, we should also pick them up as Cat B rookies (although not sure how many of these we can have, because that's 3 including Jeffries).
Onto salary cap space. We offered Dusty $1.3m and Kelly $1.0m p.a. So I'm assuming we have that space available in the four years 2019-22. We have also been amending/extending contracts to bring forward salaries into 2018. So I'm going to assume we've added ~$500k to the future salary cap space - i.e. we have $2.8m in cap space for 2019-22. I'm going to offer $1m of that to each of Wines and Sloane, and $800k to Gaff. That's that $2.8m gone, but with Goldy, Waite and Dumont, that will make another $1.3m available, which is enough to land Kelly at the end of 2019.
Our 2019 side looks like this (with Kelly added to the 2020 side):
B: EVW - Tarrant - M Williams
HB: Thompson - McKay - Wright
C: McDonald - Wines - Gaff
HF: Garner - Wood - Higgins
F: Atley - Brown - Ziebell
Foll: Preuss - Sloane - Cunnington
Int: LDU - Macmillan - Jacobs - Simpkin
Emerg: Ahern - Hartung - Turner
Depth: Thomas - Scott - Anderson - Clarke - Durdin - Hibberd - Walker - Zurhaar - Hayden - J Williams - Daw - Murphy - Hartung - Nielson - Crocker - Larkey - Junker - Xerri - Narrier - Jeffries - Watson - McGuinness - Mansell
TLDR - We win the first ever premiership five-peat 2019-23.