As the Mariners set their roster for the regular season, options become an important consideration. Earlier this month, Seattle Times reporter Geoff Baker answered some Rumor Royalty questions for MLBTR. Baker highlighted two of those players, Mike Morse and Cha Seung Baek, as likely to make the team or find work elsewhere.

M’s manager John McLaren said he’d like to have his squad set before breaking camp and leaving for their San Francisco-Las Vegas swing.

And this morning, while speaking with Baker’s colleague, Ryan Divish, McLaren hinted at possibly going the trade route with the team’s "out of options" personnel:

Unless there’s something going on with one of these guys – Dickey, the Rule 5 guy, if we’ve got a deal going for one of our guys who’s out of options. That may push us back, but I’d like to be set when we hit that plane. I don’t know that we can do that, but that would be my goal.

Any team interested in Morse has to be willing to forgive and forget as he was suspended  in 2005 for violating MLB’s drug policy (Morse has said it all stemmed from an "enormous mistake" he made in 2003).  Other than Morse and Baek the Mariners’ other "OOO" (how’s that for an acronym!) player is Charlton Jimerson.  Check out MLBTR’s full Out of Options list here.

Alejandro Leal writes for umpbump.com. He can be reached here.