btw the FP listing in the opening post of this thread is badly outdated....we should all know who our FPs are by now.

Change of heart...Tommy Smith is gone, new FP is C Carlos Tijuana.

How about a player must have played at least 1 full season in the past 2 seasons to be eligible for the playoffs? It might be hard to enforce but offers some flexibilty.

For me, I really enjoy the regular season and developing players. If I do well in the playoffs it's a bonus. But I find the playoffs are too frustrating and unpredictible.

Here is my two cents on the topic of warehousing players:

Some people can and do play lengthy careers. I managed to play for over twenty years in minor (really, really minor) league hockey. I played fewer and fewer games as I aged, but I was always on the team and ready to go.

I can think of several professional players who have done the same in their careers; Chris Chelios comes to mind immediately. He has rarely played full schedules with any team over the past few years, but was available for the playoffs if needed.

As for my team in the SIM: I do not warehouse players to preserve their careers, or to improve their ratings, but to limit the number of graduations I have in any given season. I do have one player who has been with me since year one, but one of the main reasons he has been warehoused is that he is better than any rookie I could pick up as a injury fill-in player; but he has rarely given me the stats I wanted to see to be allowed to play in an entire season. He did play in 4 of 6 playoff games last season, but he scored a total of 1 goal, had no assists and was a -2 for the series.

It would be one thing if like Chelios, these warehoused players skills dropped off. But when GM's pull out 10 or more players from the warehouse that have almost all of their attributes at 100, that's a whole other ball of wax as far as I'm concerned.

Quote: Originally Posted By big_drive on 3/12/2010It would be one thing if like Chelios, these warehoused players skills dropped off. But when GM's pull out 10 or more players from the warehouse that have almost all of their attributes at 100, that's a whole other ball of wax as far as I'm concerned

Ok, I will have to concede that point. Their skills do not deteriorate as they rightly should.

Copied and pasted from league forum...............

05/01 23:12	yogsloth	Let's take this to the MLD thread in the forum so we don't hog up all this valuable smack-talking space. Plus, many of these points and ideas are already there. I stick by my original idea in that thread.
05/01 19:55	damag	Don't agree with the TOI. What's the issue - do we want to stop players from getting too good over time, or stop owners from icing a different team for playoffs than for regular season? They're two separate issues.
05/01 19:51	bremiro	I think it should be that a player can only be warehoused for a max of 3 seasons after his 6 seasons of 20 or more games. I also think a TOI would be good as well we do it with goalies so we are conditioned to that as well.
05/01 19:06	damag	Not just no regular season games. Make it that to be eligible for playoff action, a player has to have put in at least 20 regular season games (thus using up an MLD season). And no injury replacements. So however the owner deals with that is up to him.
05/01 17:24	rammers	yep it's been up before...canuk says get rid of the 19 game rule and throw in a few seasons more...what if we just get rid of warehousing and keep the 6 season (9 FP) career rule as it is, and if warehoused (no reg season games) the player isn't available in playoffs either. That's an easy fix that doesn't mess much with player development strategies as it is today. Except for more work replacing 5 season vets having a last go.

05/01 16:27	quinet	Listen, I have the best solution to warehousing. In my other minor league, we worked retirement not by seasons but by Time on Ice (TOI). I have a whole spreadsheet with formulas to figure this out automatically. With this warehousing, people are racking up TOI without racking up seasons - it's unfair.
05/01 16:01	drg330	Here's a simple way to eliminate this issue.....to be eligible for the playoffs, any player must have played at least 20 regular season games. It'd be hard to enforce, but some honesty and some policing by the GM's here should cover things. I also like canuk's idea.
05/01 15:10	canuk	I think we should get rid of the 19 game rule.... extend the life of players for a 2 or 3 seasons. FP's can player for longer too. 12 to 15 seasons.

I just think warehousing is not realistic. I thought we wanted this to be a real as possible.

I am not sure in what season I took over this team (the seasons seem to blend in together) but I am looking at my current lineup in the playoffs. I have 5 players playing who have 100 in stamina and 5 playing who have 100 in defence. Four of those players have a 100-100 status. I am not sure if that is the norm for other teams in the postseason or not, however, those players I mentioned did not play more than 19 games during the regular season.

I am not sure how many teams have players sitting at the 612K salary (excluding the FP) but I wondered if one solution might be setting a quota at season's end for mandatory retirement of 612K players. What if every team was forced to retire say 3 players (or some set number) at the end of the playoffs each year? Would that sufficiently decrease the number of warehoused players? After 3 seasons 9 players would have disappeared from a given team's lineup. Personally, I have 14 players currently sitting at the 612K level, with 2 guaranteed saying "good-bye after the postseason. Obviously the 3 who were going to retire would probably be played regularly during the season. I just think that excluding players from the postseason who did not play more than 19 games during the regular season would end up forcing retirement of an inordinate amount of players, especially given the injury maximum set for the league.

Just my 3 cents...

Again, is the issue that we don't want teams stacking their lineups in the playoffs, using players who don't play during the regular season; or is it that we don't want players sitting around forever and maxing out their capabilities?

Though Point B has a direct effect on Point A, it is completely different.

I don't really mind which the answer is... and I think we should answer it and put the rules into place effective as soon as possible... but I prefer a ruling that outlaws playoff eligiblity without regular season participation. Because as I noted before, I manage my team around when I decide players retire. I am opposed to any ruling which would dictate terms of my players' retirements.

(Yes, were such a rule in place when I had entered the league, I would have accepted it gladly. But not now.)

I'll state again that warehousing players isn't any issue. If a GM wants to have a guy play 20 seasons only playing 19 games then that's cool by me. Hell, if anyone here still had a player on their roster from season 1 then that's awesome, and I hope they don't ever have to retire that player.

The issue is playing players 19 games during the regular season then sending them to be warehoused only to be brought back up to play in the playoffs. That is what should be stopped.

I also agree with damag, I too don't want any new rule that says when I have to retire a player. (The goalie rule aside)

Plainly put the new rule should state that to qualify for the postseason a player must have a min. of 20G during the regular season.

To gollum's concern for the nember of players that may have to retire, that would all depend on each GM. As GM you'd have to have a plan for your team (I try too) and I think you'd see a lot less draft picks get traded because GM's would have to plan for replacing players. Player turnover in this league is a good thing.

In my humble opinion you should not control who has to be retired and who doesn't ..I am in favor of leaving things the way they are...THAT being said if you are going to change anything make it that a player who appears in the playoffs had to start 20 games in a season, ....As I previously stated though I think it should remain the way it is. If I have someone telling me I have to retire certain players at certain times that is wrong . Everyone has the oppurtunity to do the same thing

Thinking outside the box a little - how about this idea:

If a player played less than 20 regular season games (1/4 of the season), then he can only play in 1/4 of the playoff games. Use him in Game 1? He can't be used again until Game 5. This will minimize their impact in the playoffs, while basically keeping the team as it was in the regular season.

That's outside the box, however if a GM is unwilling to play his best players for more than 19 games in the regular season then they shouldn't be allowed to do so in the playoffs. That would keep things fair.

I still believe that the only way to solve this is to stop warehousing all together. Like I've stated before... extend to seasons of players to like 10 seasons (FP 15 seasons). if a player plays any games (regular season and/or playoffs) it's a count against the number of seasons. Plus... it's more realistic.