With the unconventional 2020 season now run and won, fans, players and clubs have all shifted their gaze to the meat market of the off-season.
At the present, 16 of the league's 18 teams have finalised their first round of list culls, with 77 players in total told their services will no longer be required.
Either through form, injuries, or a combination of the two, many of these delistees have found it challenging to sew up consistent senior selections in the past.
Although shrinking list sizes will have the majority of these footballing nomads concerned about their future at the game's top level, the impending cuts to the eighteen salary caps may force club's to shop on a budget this trade period.
Many of these delisted names will either return to lower levels or call time on their careers, however, a select few still have something left to offer for a bargain basement wage.
With this in mind, these are the seven delisted free-agents that AFL list managers should bear in mind when completing their squads for next season.
5. Cam McCarthy
If you're willing to shell out for the heavily inked Cam McCarthy, it won't cost you much. However, even if his price tag has been heavily slashed, it still comes with a buyer beware warning.
Across the cult figure's 70 games at AFL level, he has managed the accurate return of 99.58 in front of goal, with an average of 1.4 majors per game.
โฆ๏ธ๐ฎโ #foreverfreo pic.twitter.com/Xt2vjYP82G
— Fremantle Dockers (@freodockers) August 17, 2019
On the face of it, these numbers appear to belong to someone that shouldn't just be gainfully employed, but should be doing so on a more than comfortable wage.
However, you only need a so-so memory or Wi-Fi access to understand why this isn't the case. Since his debut for the Giants in 2015, McCarthy's narrative has been signposted with as many foolish moments as there has been fanciful.
Take 2016 for example. After failing to receive a trade home to play for his childhood team of Fremantle, McCarthy walked out on the Giants and spent the entire season on the sideline. Earlier this season, the 25 year old departed the Dockers mid-season after he was notified that he wouldn't be receiving a contract for 2021 and beyond.
These pair of petulant mutinies suggest that McCarthy is a young man that is only prepared to have things his own way. His public announcement early last month that he would like to play for Collingwood, despite no formal communication with the club, only adds further weight to this theory.
There is no doubting that the South Fremantle product is a prodigiously talented player. He just also happens to be a wildly unfulfilled one too.
With that being said, the Magpie's need another forward pillar and their salary cap is about to burst, so McCarthy would solve these issues on a discounted wage.
Just don't let him know where the exit is at the last chance saloon.