WhatWhether determinesor not a player retiresdecides to retire depends on many factors. A few of those factors are as follows:
With the importance of performance (or lack there of) on the decision to retire, some players with poor offensive performance but strong defense can contemplate retirement at an early age despite their defensive strengths and values. A manager can protect against the risk of early retirement by meeting playing time minimums.
A way to monitor how likely your players are to retire is by going to your teams roster page and clicking on the Show Personal/Financial Data and looking at the Career column. It shows how happy your playerplayers currently is.are. The happier the player is the less likely he is to retire, and vice versa the more unhappy the player is, the more likely he is to retire.