Carlton Supporters Club

If Judd gets on the television  and says "we weren't expecting to be 1 and 8" you have to take that at face value. He didn't have to say it. He could have answered any questions  in another manner.

I'm sick of people bringing this swap up for all the wrong reasons. You have pointed to many of the right reasons.
I'll go a step further and add this one.

Is it possible that Stocker (rated pick 6) is better than any player in the upcoming draft?

That is pick 1 from this draft is a worse pick than Stocker.

Therefor not only did we get a better player (Stocker) than we could get this year, we got a bonus 1st round pick (Adelaide) on top of that.

Alternatively, perhaps the next draft is so relatively even that you can get an a-grade talent no matter where you pick in the first round.

Either way, looking at where our pick is vs where adelaides pick is as justification for a good/bad trade is ignoring a lot of other factors that probably carry more weight by comparison.

That is beside the point though Lods.

Does any club ever expect to be bottom 2?

If they do expect it, then they are probably not doing their job properly.
If they do expect it, and they say it publicly, then they are definitely not doing their job properly!
This goes to what i was saying above.

Malthouse played that game and said he couldn't see where we'd lose a game. How did that work out for him?

The club is gunshy on putting out expectations because if they are not met, even with legitimate reasons as to why (ie half your list injured) the media and general public are not very understanding/forgiving and the pressure increases exponentially.

Why do players trot out the '1 week at a time' and equivalent cliches? Because if they say anything of substance, its used against them and the club. Say nothing, and you have nothing to worry about.

So now stocker is pick 1 in the 2019 draft.
Ok fair enough the club obviously expected to finish bottom 2 just didn't want to  tell us.

The experts are saying the top 2 are better than Walsh.

Stokker doesn't need to better than pick 1. We traded one first rounder for two first rounders.

Extrapolation Lods. Use the grey matter.

Has jimbo hacked your account?

No  what I'm actually getting is a rather confusing picture. It seems the suggestion is that the club are being a bit cagey with the true picture and that they never really expected an improvement. Either they did or they didn't or things have gone off the rails
Which is it? Stocker may have been rated a pick 6 by us. But it seems no other club rated him that high. So he went where general expectations were or perhaps a bit ahead of that. I understand the need to look for justification for a position but don't close your mind to alternative opinions.

We won't know for a couple of years how good Stocker is (assuming he can stay on the park), but for the sake of the discussion, what numbers would constitute a win, assuming we stay within some kind of spectrum of reality ?

e.g we finish 16th, Crows finish 8th. They get pick 3, we get Stocks plus pick 11. Win or loss ?

IMO its almost certainly a win already given how we managed to get a 1st round pick from thin air to begin with.

Reality is, we won't know if its a win or a loss for a decade.

What happens if Crows got pick 1, and we got pick 18? win or loss?
What if the above, but Stocker wins a brownlow in 5 years? Win or loss?
What if we delist stocker in 2 years, but pick 18 becomes better than pick 1? Win or loss?

There is no simple answer.

Thirdly, If the club did have poor expectations going into this season, would it be in its best interests to make that public?
If it did, would we have record membership numbers? Probably not.
New sponsorship deals worth mega bucks? Probably not.
Would merchandise sales be down as a result? Yes
Would players be given an excuse for failing? Yes, and thats not ok.
Would attendances be as high? Definitely not.
Would there be increased media scrutiny on us if that was our expectation? Absolutely.

So again....is it in the clubs best interests to make this public? Hell no. Yes, some supporters, like yourself, would appreciate the honesty, but overall, its a very bad strategy.

Finally, is it possible that the club did NOT expect to be this bad? Yes.
Could that because of injuries (Doc etc) yes.
Could that be because of a lack of development in some players? Yes.
Could it be because the coaching group is failing? Yes thats true too.

My mind is open to so many permutations about where we are, where we should be and why we are where we are and where we will be in the future and how all this has happened thus far and who is on first and what is on 2nd.

Extrapolation Lods. Use the grey matter.

Has jimbo hacked your account?