[dougaiton]

Qualitative stuff, now. I looked at three of the teams in 2024, who had 12 retirements between them. Of these retirements, three I'd consider natural retirements:

Alanzo Lechuca, retired at 37
Bienvenido Coarra, retired at 34
M. Nuncz, retired at 35

The rest I would call forced retirements – players with capable skill levels, and skill levels better than their compatriots on the reserve roster, well below retirement age.

Name, Age, Ratings, Notes
SS B. Ussery, 30, 10/10/1/8, had 10 seasons service for big team
MR J. Kinneir, 30 5/3/12 - 10 seasons service, last season 5.9 VORP
MR J. Yeley, 30 11/8/9 pitched six years of positive VORP ball in the majors
SS J. Strickland, 28, 7/9/4/8/7
SS M. McMires, 28, 7,7,2,10,10
SP J. Ballard, 32, 4/13/5 - 12 years as a starter in the majors
SS J. Bertemarti, 30, 8/13/3/10 - signed a 500k per year extension 1 month before retiring!
MR K. Ushiyami, 30, 7/13/7
C K. Sor, 28, 7/12/7/10

Obviously, the ratings are just for illustrative purposes, and to show that these guys, weren’t just walking stiffs.

Of the 12 retirements, 3 looked like natural retirements, while, IMO, the others were players who had a record of major league service and most importantly ratings good enough to stay in the organisation. One had just signed an extention and, although he had missed the season before with injury, had put up a .746 OPS year at SS in the bigs the year before that. Rather predictably, the game force-retires players on the reserve roster regardless of their ability as long as they are a) over 26 and b) didn't have any ABs at the major league level the season just finished. These players were all of a decent level, had a track record in the majors (although not necessarily a good one) and hadn't ever been released by the AI. Only one was over 30.

The problem of this approach, as to culling bad prospects, is three fold:
a) Decent players stuck on reserve rosters are wiped from the game, as one season with ML ABs will probably result in instant retirement.
b) The league becomes artificially young, because all the backups are young. The chance of any non-regular veteran establishing themselves are minimal. Almost all of these players got their major league start at 20.
c) There reserve roster does not resemble a roster at all. By making arbitrary retirements on the basis of age, rather than releasing bad young players, the reserve roster gets skewed in favour of positions that often get called up to the majors. Thus, the vast majority of reserve rosters consist of middle relievers and backup catchers, but only a couple (if any) starting pitchers because these are very rarely called up into action, the AI seems to prefer to bring up reserve MRs and convert one of the ML relievers back to an SP. This in turn is cyclical: when the big club’s SPs get injured, there are none in the reserve roster so they instead select a MR.

So I see three things here:
1) A five round draft fills the reserve roster with young players, and the game needs to force retire players to maintain this. The league gets artificially young - almost all these players had played upwards of 8 or 9 years in the majors, most starting at 20.

2) Forced retirements are bad things if it forces decent players out of the game while really bad young players (5th round draftees, for example) are not cut. Remember, these are reserve roster players that the AI considers good enough not to release.

3) There is no 'reserve roster AI', so reserve rosters become storing pools for young MRs and Cs, rather than players that could actually help the AI at times of crisis.

So there are three solutions, IMO:
1) Give us the option for smaller draft classes
2) Replace force-retirements with releases into the FA pool, meaning that decent 28 year olds with track records of decent MLB service don't simply disappear.
3) Impose 'sensible' roster limits on the reserve roster; if someone needs force-retired, make it the fourth backup catcher, not the only SP on the reserve roster.

The reserve roster, if possible, should be made optional, as well. Most needed is the option for <5 round drafts. I could write a whole other post about how these individuals all got starts in the major