Tim Kelly was one of Geelong’s five best players this season. He cost the club less than $200,000.

He’s still going to be one of Geelong’s five best players next year and the number might only just break $250,000. That’s more than $100,000 under the average AFL salary.

Every move the Cats have made since recruiting Patrick Dangerfield has told us the club wants to win now, and worry about the future later.

So with all that in mind, why on earth would they agree to trade Kelly this off-season?

Kelly has been the subject of ongoing trade rumours for good reason - he had to move his young family, which includes three kids under three, to the other side of the country, far away from their extended family network.

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So you can see why he’d be eyeing off a move home to West Coast or Fremantle.

But he’s contracted to Geelong for another season, one year isn’t much in the scheme of things, and if worst comes to worst the Cats know a guy who knows a guy who can get the family sorted out with an au pair...

Long story short, the Cats have to believe they are positioned to win the premiership next season.

And when your list is as top-heavy as theirs - Patrick Dangerfield, Joel Selwood, Gary Ablett, Tom Hawkins etc - a top-five player earning what Kelly is earning is worth their weight in gold.

Because winning premierships is as much about list management as it is about on-field systems and structure. You have your stars who earn the big bucks, but you need your ‘average’ players performing above their wage if you want to win it all. Look at the teams during the Cats and Hawks dynasties of the past decade and you’ll see what I mean.

Camera Icon Kelly kicked 24 goals and averaged 23 disposals in his 23 games this season. Credit: Getty Images

That’s why the Cats have gone after mature-aged players. They’ve traded away first-round draft picks for players such as Dangerfield, Ablett, Lachie Henderson and Zach Tuohy, so they use later picks to bring in guys who can have an impact straight awy, and it’s worked out through Kelly, Tom Stewart, Sam Menegola and to a lesser extent, Ryan Abbott.

You can’t tell me any of those players aren’t playing above their pay grade. So why would you let that advantage just walk to another team?

By the way, Kelly isn’t paid what he is because of the Cats - the AFL players CBA sets standard rates for first and second-year players, which won’t change even if he changes clubs.

Then there’s the other argument: they need to get rid of Kelly while he’s still contracted.

The counter to that would be that Tim Kelly is not a free agent, so it’s not as easy to move as plenty of people think - particularly if clubs start getting more assertive with their first to sixth-year players.

If Kelly wants to come home, word is he wants to get to West Coast. But if Kelly asks to be traded at the end of next year and the Eagles can’t satisfy the Cats, then they could force him into the draft, where Freo would be poised with an earlier pick. If the Eagles are as keen as we think they are, they don’t let that happen.

So in that situation, the Cats have got another year out of Kelly at bargain rates - in a season where they’ll be gunning for the premiership - and his currency at the trade table hasn’t dipped much, if at all.

The decision might be harder if the Dockers slapped pick No.5 on the table this year, but that just isn’t going to happen.

Camera Icon Kelly has one year left on his contract, and will be paid more than $100k under AFL average. Credit: AFL Media

There’s also the issue of Geelong being hamstrung at the trade table - it’s murky and a bit ambiguous, but because they’ve traded away three years’ worth of first-round picks, if they don’t use two first-round picks this season (they currently hold pick 11), they can’t trade their 2019 first-rounder. But that situation can be fixed without involving Kelly, so it’s not a major consideration.

Since the introduction of free agency the AFL trade period has got more outlandish every season, so the Cats moving Kelly is not completely unthinkable.

But shifting him now would go against everything Geelong are trying to achieve. And after an early exit this season, it’s just not good business.