NEW RULE IDEA: Minimum Minutes Threshold - Free Agency Alternative

The DP system is set up to bring in high priced players, who are expected to start. Some have not, even some expensive ones.
Your argument appears to be based on young players who are on a roster and unable to get playing time. In what league do those players have recourse? they don't, ever. It's an issue in every top league on earth. Now, they can be loaned out, just as MLS sides loan their players to USL sides.
Just to be clear, in your view of the world, players develop only once a week, for eight months a year, while playing games? What is the point of training, in that case? Playing games is a part of development, it is not all of it. There's no manager on Earth who would agree with you on that. Young players, for the most part, develop in training. they further develop in lower leagues (which EPB did) and in spot chances with their senior clubs, which EPB has had. They develop by working to overcome senior players who are more highly rated, and they have arrived when they do that.
EPB signed with ManCity, but he hasn't expressed displeasure with his SKC experience. Maybe he will at some point. But at this point the evidence is pretty much that SKC was good to EPB, and good for EPB, just as EPB was good for SKC. He's always maintained that he likes the club. People on here assume that has to be a lie, but there is no evidence of it.

 

He was a DP for his first season, presumably because of transfer fee.

 

Uh, my list of DPs who got benched includes some big names. It's also not just a few players, it's more than one-third of all the DPs in MLS's history.

 

Let's look at 2017, shall we? Virtually every DP in the league has been rested for at least two or three games. And players who have sat more often than that:

David Accam: has had 6 league games for which he was available and didn't start; usually a starter but rarely plays 90 minutes.
Shkelzen Gashi: part-time starter when healthy.
Anibal Chala: loaned out in mid-May with zero minutes to his name, having only made the bench twice.
Cristian Colman: rarely starts.
Erick Torres: 6 league games for which he was available and didn't start.
Alberth Elis: 8 league games for which he was available and didn't start; has only played 90 minutes 4 times all season.
Gerso: 5 league games in which he was available and didn't start, including 4 of KC's last 5 games.
Xavier Kouassi: only 3 starts and no 90-minute games since early July.
Kei Kamara: 4 league games for which he was available and didn't start.
Andrea Pirlo: mostly benched since late April, returned to the lineup recently only because of Yangel Herrera's injury.
Gonzalo Veron: only 3 starts and one 90-minute game all season.
Kaka: 6 league games for which he was available and didn't start, including the last two for which he was eligible.
Carlos Rivas: part-time starter.
Yura Movsisyan: 1 start since July 4; appears to have fallen to 3rd choice center forward in a system with only one center forward.
Simon Dawkins: has been available for all but 3 games this season, but has started only twice since April 8, and has not played at all and only even made the bench twice in August and September.
Clint Dempsey: 4 league games for which he was available and didn't start.
Brek Shea: part-time starter.

That's 17 DPs in 2017, or almost a third of them, who have been benched for 4 or more games for which they were available. And there are other DPs who are consistent starters but rarely play 90 minutes, such as Pedro Santos and Valeri Qazaishvili,

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_5_draft

I was just reading this thread and was surprised that nobody mentioned MLB's rule 5 draft. It makes young players who are in one team's minor league system for a long time eligible to be drafted by other teams, but the drafting team has to keep them on their major league roster the whole season. It sounds like it was done for parity more than anything else, to keep teams from stockpiling players in the minors who could be playing on other teams. I know the Cardinals took a Single-A player in the rule 5 draft one year, kept him on their major league roster the whole season, and the only thing he ever did was pinch run. Not great for his development, but apparently it worked out ok for some others. If they did something similar in MLS, it would probably be below the regular draft in terms of impact on team building (teams would make sure their best prospects didn't become eligible), but it might help a few players who are stuck in bad situations get more playing time somewhere else.

I know a lot of people mention Carleton as an example of a talented player stuck in a bad situation. I think if he's as good as people hope, he will force his way onto the field sooner than later. If not, he probably just isn't that good, and getting 500 minutes wouldn't have changed that drastically. In the long run, teams will realize it's in their interest to develop young players because they are salary cap bargains and because they can sell them for more that way. They're still learning how best to do that, but the teams that figure it out are going to have a big competitive advantage, and everyone else will copy them.

On the other hand, suppose a team has 3 great young GK prospects in their academy and wants to sign all of them to HG contracts. If they are all that great, is there anything in the current rules that would prevent the team from signing them all and trading them to a team that has more of a need at that position (honest question)? If nobody wants to trade for them, and they're getting zero playing time even at a position that is rotated and substituted more than GK, I'm guessing they aren't that great.

I do think MLS and USSF have a joint interest in developing American players. I don't know what the answer is, but in my opinion that's the most important issue facing USSF right now. They need to work together for the good of American soccer, not just for their own pocket books. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

 

Free agency is a problem, not something to be desired. It means players are not being employed. I doubt players who don't meet your threshold would want to get fired, and I doubt the teams would support such rule changes. Who wins under your idea? Nobody.

 

Dude, there's 30 players allowed in a squad. Only 18 can make the match day team with a max of 14 getting minutes. Its competition for spots. That's what so many people have cried for over the last several years. If a coach loses playing the foreign DPs over a better; and if we every have this it'll be interesting; young home grown, he'll be fired. Do you happen to know what happens each year to the younger players who do not get many minutes, if any at all?

I'll save the research, they get cut which effectively makes them free agents. The players with futures but who may not be ready get time in the USL. Aside from that, we have one real legitimate foreign coach in MLS and the management model in the league is almost uniformly, sporting director picks the players and the manager coaches the team he's given. There's input from the manager, sure, but the sporting director hires the coach and gets the players.

 

So, between Garde and Tata, which is illegitimate?

 

Forgot about Garde!