Options

Options are one of those things in baseball that can be a little arcane. This story at MLB.com uses a former Timber Rattler to illustrate what can happen when a player runs out of options with the team that drafted him.

Backstory first:

First, a quick primer: "Option," in baseball-speak, is short for optional assignment, a move that allows a big league team to send a player on its 40-man roster to the Minors -- or call him back up to the Majors -- at any point during a given season without taking the risk of making him available to the 29 other teams.

It's a system with many advantages. It works well when inevitable injuries pop up, it helps contenders fortify areas by giving regulars a rest, it aids struggling clubs and gives them a glimpse of their future, and it helps the Minor Leaguers get a taste of where they eventually want to end up.

It's also generous. Each player, upon addition to the 40-man roster, is afforded three options, which means that teams can freely send the player back and forth as many times as they wish in three separate seasons.

The only stipulation is that the player can't be called back to the Majors for at least 10 days unless a big leaguer is put on the 15-day disabled list.

After three -- and, in some special cases, four -- seasons, the player is out of options, which means that a trip to the Minors is a chance for other teams to scoop him up through waivers.

Now to the part involving an ex-Rattler:

In the spring of 2006, the Seattle Mariners were embarking on their ninth year with lefty Matt Thornton in the organization. Thornton, who could routinely hit 96 mph on the radar gun with his fastball, had been a first-round selection in the First-Year Player Draft in 1998 but didn't make the Majors until 2004 because of control issues and certainly wasn't a roster mainstay.

The issues continued to plague him -- he issued 42 walks in 57 innings in 2005 -- and the team didn't see much improvement the following spring, which meant he was not going to make the Opening Day roster. He also was out of options.

On March 21, with a little more than a week before the regular season started, then-GM Bill Bavasi orchestrated a classic out-of-options deal, dealing Thornton to the White Sox for another former first-round pick, Joe Borchard, a hitter with freakish power -- including the longest homer in U.S. Cellular Field history, at 504 feet -- who hadn't put it
all together on the field. The Mariners didn't want to let a lefty such as Thornton, with that kind of arm, get away without getting something in return.

Eventually, the deal worked out incredibly well -- for the White Sox. Thornton fit in there, ironed out his command over two so-so years, and in 2008, at the age of 31, it all clicked for him. He only walked 19 batters in 67 1/3 innings, struck out 77, put up a 2.67 ERA and .995 WHIP, and followed that with a 2009 (2.74 ERA, 1.078 WHIP, 87 strikeouts and 20 walks in 72 1/3 innings) that cemented him as one of the best relievers -- lefty or righty -- in baseball.

Borchard got nine at-bats in less than a month of roster time in Seattle before the Mariners dropped him and he was claimed by Florida. He was a reserve with the Marlins, hit .230 in 2006 and .196 in 2007, and hasn't played in the Majors since.

"I made the team in '05 because I was out of options, and by '06 I still had those command issues," Thornton said. "The whole time, I'm trying to improve, and they're keeping me with the hope that I'll become the guy that they thought I could become when they drafted me. I guess what I needed was a new organization, a fresh start and a new attitude about pitching."

At the very end of the article, Doug Miller, the author, brings up the name Manny Parra.