Inputting Jake Lever and no one else, I come up with this as our would-be best 22 next year:
Medium defenders: Dale Morris, Easton Wood
Running wing/defenders: Shane Biggs, Jason Johannisen, Bailey Williams, Lachie Hunter
Midfielders: Jack Macrae, Luke Dahlhaus, Mitch Wallis, Tom Liberatore
Mid/forwards: Bailey Dale, Marcus Bontempelli, Toby McLean, Caleb Daniel
Forwards: Jake Stringer, Liam Picken
KPPs: Zaine Cordy, Lewis Young, Jake Lever, Marcus Adams
Versatile rucks: Jordan Roughead, Tom Boyd
Then, accounting for the losses of Murphy, Boyd, Cloke, Crameri, Prudden, Hamilton, Honeychurch and then possibly Webb and Redpath, we get:
Surplus: Dunkley, Jong, C Smith, Roberts, Lipinski, Collins, Dickson, English, Suckling, (Webb, Redpath)
Developing possibilities: R Smith, Lynch, Greene
Developing unlikelies: Mullenger-McHugh, Tweedie
The need for pacey, clean outside types is pretty obvious, but I am against going for Kelly. We have a very strong core, one which becomes really solid if we acquire Lever, so we need to address this issue through the acquisition of multiple role players in the right age bracket. Pittard fits the bill here, and there would be others we could target through the draft from the second round onwards. I also really like Darcy Lang - if we could pick up him and Pittard the issue would go a long way to being resolved. Even Balic would be a nice addition.
If Redpath does, in fact, leave, we'll need to target another KPP role player in the same vein as mentioned before. Others we can target through the draft.
You look at Hawthorn of 2013-15, and they filled their teams with guys who would just come in and do the job reliably. They had a strong core of Mitchell, Hodge, Burgoyne, Roughead, Smith, Lewis and Rioli yet no out-and-out stars of the Dusty, Dangerfield, Ablett variety. Then they filled their remaining spots not with other hopeful stars, but with guys they knew could do the job in the right age bracket. This is what we need to do. If we can attract Lever, we don't need to go looking at more Josh Kelly types. We need the role players who can fill the holes in our list cheaply and let our best existing talent lead the brigade.