I could get on board with giving the agent the option to release their own players within that certain time frame, but for brand new owners, having those few players might be the only chance to win a few games and not give up early when they have a hard time recruiting and filling up a team.
That said, I would probably say that only players in the red inactive stage should be kept (as orange and white could just be on vacation or awaiting the season to start before going active again). If those red stage inactives can't be bothered to log in at least once to make sure their players are taken care of then I can't feel too sorry for them if they get stuck on a team for a season.
+ .5