This is the first in a series of posts that revive a long-lost, well-loved Red Reporter feature: the Red Report. The writing staff will be giving in-depth profiles on new faces who are at least somewhat likely to see time with the big league team this year.

Sean Marshall

#46 / Relief Pitcher / Cincinnati Reds

Height: 6-7

Weight: 220

Bats: L

Throws: L

Age: (b. Aug 30, 1982)

Nicknames: None official

Proposed Nicknames

Saving Sean Marshall (Setting Up Sean Marshall?), The Once and Former Cub, The Wood Shed, The Amp, The Stack, The Plan

Fast Facts

• Sean Marshall was born in Richmond Virginia. His older brother is a former farmhand in the Red Sox organization. Richmond is also the birthplace of Willard Marshall, an outfielder who played for the Reds for two seasons during the 1950s and attended the same high school as Sean. Baseball Reference doesn't list them as relatives, but considering the facts at hand and the genome of the South, they probably are related in some way (I'm allowed to say this because my recent relatives all came from a sticktown in WV) - though Marshall is a pretty common name down there.
  
• Virginia is also the birthplace of the other lefty shotgun barrel in the Reds' bullpen, Bill Bray, and Mat Latos too. This should help put the pitching staff's chemistry on a fast track.
• After pitching three seasons at Virginia Commonwealth, Marshall was drafted by the Cubs in 2003. He made his professional debut that same year with low-A Boise Hawks. He was teammates in the Cubs' system with Reds' spring training invitee Sean Gallagher. His lifetime minor league line is sterling, with a 2.70 ERA, 8.6 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9
• He was added to the Cubs 40-man roster after the 2005 season and began his major league career as a starter, making 24 starts his rookie year in 2006 - Dusty Baker's last in the Cubs' dugout.
  
• He converted to relief for good in 2010, after making both starts and relief appearances during ' 08 and '09. He started 2009 in the rotation, but spent most of the season in the bullpen.

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Dave Cameron runs down the 10 best transactions of the winter
The Madson deal checks in at #9, which I think is a little low. Also, the Mat Latos trade checks in at #3, though he thinks the Padres were run away winners in the deal:

"The Reds needed to make a deal like this, but I love this trade for the Padres. Alonso might not have star potential, but as a left-handed hitter with opposite field power, he should be able to hit well enough in Petco to be a useful piece, and there’s value in having six years of a cost controlled Wally Joyner hanging around. Grandal is the real key to this deal, though, as a switch-hitting catcher with power and patience who could easily be more valuable than Latos over the next six years by himself. Toss in a terrific buy-low arm in Edinson Volquez, who is a perfect fit for Petco, and a good young bullpen arm in Boxberger, and the Padres restocked their talent base in a hurry without drastically making their team worse for 2012. In fact, if Alonso and Volquez perform as expected, the team could actually be better than they would have been with Latos and some random first baseman. Toss in the long term value, and this deal was just a huge win for San Diego."

No news on Brandon Phillips' contract extension
Sheldon asked Jocketty if there was anything to report and he replied, "Not really. We really haven’t had a chance to talk with them. Hopefully in the next few weeks, it’s something we can address."

I'm of the opinion that if this extension were a go, it would have happened weeks ago. The Reds have to be diplomatic about this and say all the right things like "Hopefully soon" and "We are still in talks", but the fact that it has dragged out so long gives me the impression that the team and BP are just too far apart. It's gonna be tough to see ol' BeePerino go, but ultimately I think it would be even tougher to see him struggle to stay above replacement level in his mid-30s.

Tigers' owner Mike Ilitch got mad guap
and is not afraid to throw it around like Weezy in the club. Joe Sheehan says, "Ilitch represents an approach to sports-team ownership that is in short supply these days: wanting the next win more than the next dollar. Far too many franchises are run as if they're the corner grocery, with the need to stay in the black for the next month, next quarter, next year the primary goal, and winning a secondary one."

The Prince Fielder signing was roundly criticized for being enormously short-sighted. The Tigers already had a 1B (Miguel Cabrera, who is better than Prince), and a DH (Victor Martinez, who won't play in 2012 because of knee surgery). But once Vic went down, Illitch gave the directive to go after Prince. It's short-sighted and expensive, but make no mistake; the Tigers are now far and away the favorite to win the AL Central. Signing Prince made the team better, and that's the most important thing to Illitch.

I think Bob Castellini should take note, especially in regards to the Roy Oswalt sitch. Oswalt will make the team better, so much better in fact that they would likely be clear favorites to win the division this year. Making the playoffs would likely pay off whatever cost it takes to get Oswalt. See, getting Oswalt would be an investment, one that has a solid chance of paying off and then some. Illitch is the kind of guy who gets that (though to be fair, 200 million bones is ca-razy. But the argument still has merit on principle).

Da Briz sez it makes too much sense for the Roy Oswalt to not come to the Reds
To sum up, he says that for a team like the Reds, who are squarely in the middle of the contention window, every marginal upgrade counts. The difference between Roy Oswalt and Bronson Arroyo could quite literally be the difference between 1st place and 2nd place (or 3rd place, for that matter). Of course, the money is the big reason this likely will not happen, but if Bob were more like Mike Illitch, this would have been done last week.

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Congratulations, everyone. Here is your list of the top prospects for 2012:

1. Devin Mesoraco
2. Zack Cozart
3. Billy Hamilton
4. Daniel Corcino
5. Neftali Soto
6. Robert Stephenson
7. Yorman Rodriguez
8. Todd Frazier
9. Henry Rodriguez
10. Didi Gregorius
11. Tony Cingrani
12. J.C. Sulbaran
13. Denis Phipps
14. Kyle Lotzkar
15. David Vidal
16. Juan Duran
17. Tucker Barnhart
18. Donald Lutz
    
19. Amir Garrett
20. Ryan LaMarre
21. Chris Manno
22. Gabriel Rosa
23. Junior Arias
24. Josh Smith
25. Sean Buckley

You can measure the beginning of spring from any number of starting points. But those who wisely refuse to wait for the equinox or last outfielder to book their flight will mark it February 19 this year. That's the voluntary report date for pitchers, catchers and an oft-overlooked third class of early bird: the injured player. They already have the disabled list, so we're not going to start calling mid-February the Festival of Injured Players Report.

Now that we're inside of two weeks before the ceremonial opening of Spring Training, it's worth giving the class list for major league camp a once-over. Although my research could be shoddy, I don't think I've seen this anywhere else.

I've coded the invites into four groups:

Italic, Bold and Red - locks to make the Opening Day roster, barring injury or trade

Red, Bold, plain text - Likely to make it

Red plain text - Bubble players

Black plain text - Little or no chance

#

All told, there are 21 spots that seem 100% locked-up to me. On a standard modern NL roster, that's 10 of 12 pitchers, 6 of 6 infielders, 4 of 5 outfielders and 1 of 2 catchers - though the team looks poised to carry only four outfielders by adding Francisco. And it could possibly carry one less pitcher for the first week of the season or so.

WilsonValdez and Devin Mesoraco should probably go ahead and be #22 and 23, but I see some possibility (however remote) of a surprise move displacing them. In all likelihood, however, there are only two spots up for grabs if everyone stays healthy. And those spots are probably in the bullpen. They are also only slightly more open than Mesoraco's claim to the Ramon Hernandez Chair for Cooperative Catching - which is to say: nearly closed.

Logan Ondrusek and Sam LeCure have earned their spots in the 'pen, but it's not impossible that the Reds choose (unwisely) to use LeCure for starting pitching depth or that Logan's health and/or a strong showing in Spring by a pitcher like Josh Judy lands 'seks back in Louisville.

Full oster after the jump.

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Josh Smith makes our list at 24, meaning there's one spot left. We'll have a vote between the remaining 5 guys, and then later on in the week we'll be voting on who makes our list as an honorable mention. We're doing that a little different this year, so listen up.

If you have a name you want to add to the honorable mention poll, mention it in the comments below. The top 5 vote-getters in the poll will win an honorable mention in this year's rankings? Why is this important? Last year, guys like David Vidal and Didi Gregorius made that spot. They're usually guys with big upside who can be poised to have a breakout year, and guys like Juan Duran, Daniel Corcino, and Sam LeCure made the lists of nyc and myself last year.

Vote now.

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