The Quick Rundown on Options
No introduction necessary. I’m simply going to attempt to explain all about options in fewer than 300 words. Here we go.
Options are essentially an expansion of the Rule 5 draft. Both are means to prevent teams from collecting and hoarding talent beyond the amount they can field. When an option is used, that simply means the player is on the 40-man roster and was sent to the minors. The majority of players have three option seasons; seasons being the key word there. Take Jeremy Hellickson for example. The Rays reassigned him to minor league camp a few days ago and he will begin the season in Triple-A. At which point an option will be used.
There are some exceptions to this rule.
As discussed with Andrew Miller, a player with fewer than five professional seasons will have a fourth option added.
If a player is optioned to the minors, but spends fewer than 20 days in the minors throughout the entire season, then an option is not used.
If a player misses the season due to injury.
The most confused aspect of the entire ordeal is the difference between years and seasons and how it portrays into options. Take Hellickson again. Since Hellickson was only added to the 40-man last winter, he will have two more options remaining. That is true no matter how many times the Rays promote and demote him throughout the 2010 season.
Oh, and one other thing, teams cannot run what amounts to a 26-man roster by optioning a pair of players up and down throughout any given week. A player sent down has to stay down for 10 days barring an injury to someone on the 25-man roster.
Hopefully that clears things up, if not check out Keith Law’s more detailed post here.
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The player doesn’t need to miss the entire season, just a significant amount. In 2008, Brett Carroll had an optioned used in April, was called up May 2nd, injured May 24th, and reinstated September 1st. So he was injured for ~3 months and healthy for ~3 months (2 of which on the MLB roster), but that option was reinstated.
He had an option used in 2007, 2008, and 2009, so he should be out of options, but he still has an option left because the 2008 one was reinstated.
From talking to Cots, the team has to file for the option to be reinstated with the commish office, and if they agree that player than has the option reinstated.
“If a player misses the season due to injury.”
You need to expand on this thought. Just a heads up.
Dunno if he “needs” to. I got it. If a player gets hurt, the team can ask the commish’s office to look into the case and potentially add another option year.
Oh ok, I re-read it and finally understood what he was trying to say. It just seemed like he quit typing mid-thought because everything else after “There are some exceptions” has some explanations/clarifications, while the injury one has nothing.
For those drafting before the 25-man rosters are finalized a list of players in camp w/o options remaining would be helpful. I’ve looked all over and can’t find such a list.
The part that I’ve never understood is when does a player lose the ability to option a player even if he hasn’t used all three options.
Let’s say a player is added to the 40 man roster in winter 2006 and optioned once during the ’07 season. And in 2008/2009/2010/2011 he is a full-time player in the majors (never being optioned). could he be optioned in 2012 if something happened (bad injury that changes his skills or going Francouer on a team)? Is there a service time reqt for optioning a player to the minors? usually this isn’t an issue though.
After 5 years of service time, a player can refuse being optioned.
http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2003/01/transactions-glossary.html
Answers almost any question you could have