Look, probably a bit harsh to say "lifted" as I'm sure it's your own genuine opinion, but it's just a really common one that Carlton supporters that understand where the club is going and why we've made the decisions we have get a little bit tired of. Now I don't blame neutral fans for having that opinion because you guys will only believe what you see (in games) and what the media feeds you.
TLDR for the following: A lot of neutral supporters opinions about our recruiting are based on believing poorly conceived media articles and not understanding the true reasons for our horrible 2-win season.
Long version:
1) What the footy media says about us
It's been media types like Matthew Loyd that have written lazy, research-free, surface-level articles about our recruiting.
The reality is that around 75-80% of our trade currency over the past 4 years have NOT gone into GWS players. They have gone into young talent in the draft, like Weitering, Curnow, Mackay, Petrevski-Seton, Fisher, Williamson, Macreadie, Dow, O'Brien, Cuningham, Walsh and Stocker.
Add to these guys the four GWS targets that we have genuinely gone after (and got for decent prices) - Setterfield, Kennedy, Marchbank and Plowman.
These guys are the rebuild. And there's nothing to suggest that any of those players, including the GWS four, aren't going to make it if a couple of them can work through their injury issues. Marchbank and Plowman are already best 22, with Plowman in the leadership group last year.
The other GWS players were basically salary dumps, or free swings that we hoped would provide some cover and depth. They didn't really work out, but we didn't actually pay anything for them either. People need to stop pretending that GWS-trading has been some core strategy in our rebuild because it absolutely as not. We've taken good-value trades from them when we've believed in will provide young talent to add to the rebuild, or depth to cover for it.
2) Our on-field performance in 2018
Well it's difficult to defend this from what an opposition supporter sees, but there are reasons.
The first thing people need to keep in mind is exactly how far back we were coming from when we decided to rebuild in 2015. The list was a huge mess - and the first thing we needed to do was actually trade out a lot of the older talent we actually did have in order to hit the draft the way we needed to. Think GWS or Suns when they were starting, but wit less concessions, and I'm not even joking here.
Fast forward 3 years and what you get in 2018 is a list that is the youngest and least experienced that group is ever going to be - yes there is a lot more potential but that takes time to develop. It actually makes perfect sense that the 3rd year of a complete rebuild (where at the end of each of those years you're removing more experienced players and replacing them with younger, raw talent) is going to be the toughest - particularly when you combine that year with a horrible run with injuries and very questionable (to say the least) injury management.
There is a very good reason why we sacked our previous High Performance guy at the end of the 2018 season and threw the kitchen sink at Andrew Russell to get him over from Hawthorn. There were huge question marks over our player management in 2018 and it's one of the key reasons why our year was so terrible - our team had no continuity at all with players constantly in and out. And yes - a more developed and mature team would have the depth to cover for this, but in the most vulnerable year of our rebuild, we didn't.
As evidence for this, since starting at the club Russell (according to ITK posters on our board) has already expressed serious surprise at just how underdone for AFL level a lot of our players actually were.
I think you'll see a significant jump from us over the next 2 seasons as our players from the start of the rebuild move into their fourth and fifth years and we supplement that with other talent to fill holes. I'm confident SOS has chosen well, and certainly don't see any real evidence to the contrary at the moment. Of course, whether they'll turn out to be good players that can get us into the 8, or great players that will get us to a flag is something we won't know for some time yet.
As for your comment about the facts not being indisputable - well that makes them opinions, not facts
Good post. And with lots of detail.
I agree that there is clearly more wrong than JUST the recruitment department but from a neutral the perception is that Carl haven't exactly set the world on fire with many of the list management decisions they have made in recent years. Many clearly preceded Silvagni getting there but others haven't. Being a Cats fan I suppose we've been the beneficiary of having Tuohy come our way and in return give up Smedts. I know there was more to that trade. Losing Henderson was another questionable decision when your club was becoming bereft of senior mentoring talent already. Adding list cloggers like Rhys Palmer, Jed Lamb, Liam Sumner and Darcy Lang are all decisions that, as a neutral, you scratch your head over.
Of course there have been some wins. Marchbank looks to be quality. Plowman promising too. I think it's too early to rate both Kennedy and of course Setterfield at this stage.
I think your point re development is a sound one too. I have similar concerns at Geelong. We've failed to have a host of recent young talent come on as we would have liked and saw happen back in the early 2000's. Gaining Russell is a massive win for your club.
But going back to Silvagni, he, to me, doesn't seem to be a bloke with a vision that is one you could have a lot of confidence in. I think the preparedness to trade out all that experience for hopefully young talent is very risky. Having mentors and experienced players to set standards etc is critical. You'd want to see the likes of Petrevski-Seton, McKay, Gartlett, MacCreadie, Cunningham, Polson etc come on quickly now in order to move up the ladder in any substantial manner. Otherwise another 5 years will go past with little to celebrate.