Putting into an article the phrase ‘is out of options’ one week before Opening Day is a completely normal thing. In fact, it’s precisely at this time each and every year where the eventuality of players’ option scenarios always play out, as it’s annually a deciding factor in how big league organizations shape both their 40-man and, most importantly, their 26-man rosters.
Of course, it’s in normal years that these teams have long known precisely which of their players had options and did not. As is the case with everything in life, the last calendar year has been anything but normal, and that left ample residual confusion about the option status of quite a few players across the game right up until this week.