What began humbly as a pretentiously-titled section on the left sidebar of this website now contains "several" pages rather than "a couple." The Reference Desk is your easily-accessible resource for up-to-date player information - contract status, injury histories and now, Twitter handles. Here are some of the recent additions to our holdings, which I hope will help answer FAQs about the Reds and better prevent you from ever having to visit any other site.

Reds Players on Twitter

This section dropped just this week. I'm not nearly as proficient on Twitter as many of you, but this is my attempt to put together a listing of all current Reds players who have active Twitter handles. Some Tweet more than others. I've left off Ryan Madson, who it seems had an authentic handle at some point but hasn't Twatt (not positive that's the past tense of Tweet) in nearly two years. I'm hoping to add Reds media personalities, veterans and a Dallas Latos category soon. Feel free to offer your additions and corrections.

Complete Org Chart (MLB Daily Dish)

This was discussed in a FanShot, but MLB Daily Dish - SBNation's news and trade rumors pub - mapped the players and contract vitals in the Reds' system from low-A to the majors. You should offer your feedback here or on their thread if you haven't already.

2012 Spring Training Invitees

Hopefully this is a current list of all non-roster invites to big league camp this Spring. I'm not sure yet if Wifrin Obispo - who was just signed to a minor league deal and who may actually be a food and drug conglomerate - received an invite. Let me know if we missed anyone.

Any suggestions for information that isn't currently easy to find and might fit in this section would be more than welcome. As soon as we wrap the Community Prospect Rankings, we'll be looking at Composite rankings of Reds' farmhands and logging prospect histories, leaning on past Community rankings. Stay tuned. That is, stay near the Desk and please be quiet.

Junior Arias takes the 23rd spot on the list in one of the tighter races we've had, beating Josh Smith by only 5 votes. Still going on potential with him, but if all goes well, he'll be seeing the bright lights of Dayton for a good chunk of this year.

Two spots left. Vote.

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The Enquirer links to a piece from Chicago Tribune's Phil Rodgers
In which Rodgers posits that Joey Votto will inevitably be a Blue Jay. It's nothing we haven't heard before. The Blue Jays would look sharp with Jose Bautista and Joey Votto in the lineup together, and the Reds can't possibly sign Votto to a long-term deal. So the question is not if the Blue Jays will get their native son, but whether the Reds will trade him for a bevy or prospects or bid him farewell as he leaves via free agency.

It's all so speculative, though. There is nothing that says Votto actually wants to go to Toronto. Also, the Blue Jays have a publicly stated policy against signing contracts for longer than five years. And perhaps most obvious is the perhaps faulty assumption that the Reds don't have a prayer in re-signing him. I'm not saying they will, I'm just questioning the certainty that they won't. Either way, if you think this speculation is annoying now, it is most certainly only going to get worse.

FSO has announced their Spring Training TV schedule
It looks like the only Spring Training game that will be broadcast is a March 5th tilt against the Indians. That sucks. I know the live productions take some effort and treasure to produce, but I would have liked more than one game this spring. There is a robust schedule for Reds Rewind though, and a nightly show Reds Live - Spring Training 2012. So that should serve as an adequate appetizer for Opening Day.

Skip Schumaker sounds sour re: squirrel send-up
Topps baseball cards released a limited edition version of Skip Schumaker's 2012 card featuring the rally squirrel who interrupted his at-bat in Game Four of the NLDS last October. The squirrel became a minor but still cute story line as the Cardinals went on to take the pennant and the World Series trophy.

Predictably, Schumaker was whiny about it. "It's pretty ridiculous," Schumaker told FOXSportsMidwest.com. "I have a shoe on my baseball card. And a squirrel. It's pretty ridiculous...It's not disappointing, it's just ridiculous...I don't know how else to explain it other than that. You expect to have some sort of action shot or something but it's like a mascot card to me...I'm not frustrated, I just think people are going to look at it and laugh and that's ridiculous. I don't care about what I look like or anything but it's literally just a squirrel that has nothing to do with me."

He thinks it's ridiculous. What is it about St. Louis that makes the players act so ridiculous and say such ridiculous things? I'm genuinely concerned that there is a hidden pocket of magnetism or radioactivity or something ridiculous that drains the team of any sense of humor. I mean, what kind of person gets that ridiculous about a baseball card? And it's not even his primary card, it's a limited edition card. His regular card will feature him missing a ground ball up the middle or chopping a four-hopper to the first baseman or something ridiculous like that. This cute squirrel on a few thousand cards with his name on it though, that's just ridiculous to him. This whole thing is ridiculous.

FanGraphs likes the Jeff Francis signing
"In an offseason where Jason Marquis nets a somewhat lucrative one-year deal, it’s simply stunning to me that Francis, who for all his faults was a 2.6-win pitcher last season, had to settle for a minor league deal. Sure, there’s more red flags than a Chinese embassy here, but projection-wise you have to believe Francis has matured greatly as a pitcher to be a nearly 3-win hurler despite an 84.7 mph average heater. Can you even call that a heater? Maybe it’s a warmer. Joking aside, Francis hasn’t landed in an ideal place with the Great American Ballpark (120-133 home run park factors via StatCorner), but if he gains velocity back in his ongoing rehabilitation efforts, as a lefty he could carve out a nice, long career in the back of a number of rotations."

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I think this was the right pick here. Last year's 2nd round pick seemed like a great one, as scouts really liked his approach at the plate. He played 3B all of last year, but is still a ways away from the big league roster.

Vote now.

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Scott Rolen might someday trace an unjust Hall of Fame snub to his 2005 collision with Dodgers' 1B Hee Sop-Choi - an incident that resulted in a labrum tear and ultimately required surgery. The following season, without the help of even one stem cell, he played 147 games and slashed .296/.369/.518. Rolen's shoulder began nagging him toward the end of 2007, requiring surgery for scar tissue removal. The next season, he injured his finger at the beginning of the season and experienced more shoulder troubles toward the end, but pieced together 108 OPS+ season as a Blue Jay.

He increased his production at the plate and attendance record in each of the next two seasons, appearing in 133 games with the 2010 Reds and helping lead the team to a division championship. Then Rolen went under the knife for his shoulder again late last July, after wearing down late in 2010 and seeming lost at the plate throughout 2011.

Depending on how you count them, Rolen will be mounting his third comeback from a major injury this season. This time he'll be doing it as a 37-year old. Anecdotally and statistically, Rolen is still a very good defender at third. His left shoulder injury doesn't affect his throwing arm and doesn't seem to significantly limit his ability to put his glove in the right place.

Slate called the labrum tear "baseball's most fearsome injury." While it's painful, nagging and career-threatening, most of the sensationalism is about pitchers and their throwing arms. Where I see Rolen's injury mattering most is in his swing and, consequently, his plate approach. He's already altered his batting stance at least once to accommodate his shoulder issue, likely sacrificing some power (though it's hard both to explain 2010 and to figure out how much to chalk up to normal aging). Last season, Rolen didn't have trouble making contact, but he did walk at a lower rate than he ever has while swinging at more balls out of the strike zone.

He only appeared in 65 games in 2011, so I don't know how much to read into his performance. Rolen's plate vision, an attribute that actually improves in many veterans, is likely still there. His walk rate dipped permanently below 10% after 2005, but he's been good for around 9% since then and was at 9.3% in 2010 (after altering his batting stance).

The body just might not be willing. If his bat speed and torque remain diminished, he may compensate by reaching for pitches he ordinarily would have taken for a ball. The extent to which his strength and confidence returns will determine his success this year and ability to avoid a bizarre, Star Wars surgery.

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Who? The guy we got for Jonny Gomes, that's who! He was seriously lights out in Bakersfield last year. Right now, he's basically what Boxberger was but doesn't throw as hard. I'll be interested to see how he does as Pensacola's closer.

Same choices as yesterday, vote away.

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• The Caravan swung to Columbus
  "It's a swing city, really," Reds chief operating officer Phil Castellini said during a stop at Polaris Fashion Place mall in Columbus. Leading the Caravan to C-bus was Brandon Phillips and catching wunderkind Devin Mesoraco, who was glad to get a few more questions this year: "I get more questions now, it seems like. In the past when I was with Brandon [Phillips], he'd get all the questions. More people know who I am, I guess." BP then deadpanned "get me a Coke, groundhog," grinning and elbowing Thom Brennaman in the ribs. For pictures and Caravan wrap-ups, check out the fine work at OMGreds and Red Hot Mama.
• Commercially viable Reds
  The offseason is about selling tickets and selling out, and plenty of Reds have shilled for Corporate America over the years. Redlegs Review runs down some old television endorsements by Reds for products like Aqua Velva, Krylon Paint, and Pepsi, which tastes the worst of the three.
• "So you're telling me there's a chance"
  According to the Vegas bookmakers, the Reds are now a 25-1 shot for winning the WS and a 9-1 for taking the NL pennant. Sounds reasonable, no? (If I could short any of these, I'd bet against Miami to win the Series at 15-1.) But maybe some pessimism is in order. Redleg Nation ran some fancy algorithms based on the Reds' ZiPS projections, and spat out a 84-78 season. Then again, Reds Net Live thinks that simply avoiding last year's injury bug will be the difference-maker. Who's right?
• How would you improve baseball?
  May as well take advantage of an uneventful week in baseball to muse about what could make it better. I'm not crazy about some of these suggestions, but I've long been behind Christina Kahrl's idea to make relievers face off against more than just one batter: Her proposal: "Any pitcher has to face a minimum of three batters in an inning or complete that inning before he may be removed from a game.... The goal is to cut down on the shuffling from the 'pen and the interminable committee meetings that can make the last three innings of action in a ballgame seem anything but active." I'm all in favor of speeding up the game. To set up somewhat of a straw-man, purists who oppose efforts to speed up games are mistaken that history favors their view. Before night games, umpires routinely prodded players to hurry up the action to avoid calling games for darkness.
• Barry's in Brazil
  Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, with some other former players and with assistance from MLB International, is hosting Elite Camps next month in Brazil to instruct the best junior (14-17) talent in the area. Good to see MLB extending its reach down there, because according to baseball-reference there have been no MLB players from Brazil, Argentina, or Peru. That's less than Russia (8!), Austria-Hungary (4), Saudi Arabia (1), and "Atlantic Ocean" (1?).

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Ryan LaMarre impressively wins his first trip onto the ballot. I'm wondering, it must be just name recognition at this point, right? Not much has been made about his impressive base-stealing year, but a prolonged slump in April and a huge BABIP swing in May (.403) make me not too thrilled with that season, in that run environment, from someone who should be so far ahead of his peers there. Let's hope he makes major improvements in Pensacola next season.

Same choices as yesterday, vote now.

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Amir Garrett wins the latest round of voting, and for good reason, because the sky is the limit for this guy. He's got natural athleticism (which is the thing you can't teach), and if he gets the proper coaching he could be really, scary good. It won't happen overnight though. The next step for him is to see where he pitches this season (if he does), but if I was a betting man, I'd guess he'll be in rookie ball around the time their seasons open up, until school starts back up for him.

With the odd mix of players this year, I'm going to do something we don't normally do and add a whole mess of players to the poll. There are a lot of players at this point that have some potential but question marks, so the ones the community likes best will round out the top 25.

Let's do it, vote.

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Covering what other writers are too scared too preoccupied with actual news to cover.

Ever since half our writing staff quit to go create outer space themed mad libs write speeches for the Newt Gingrich campaign, we've had a hard time adhering to our self-imposed Friday afternoon deadline. We could have avoided this delay by simply copying and pasting seven Tweets from John Fay. However, if we do that now, what are we going to do once we lose 18 hours a week from watching baseball?

Saturday: The Rheds are on the Rhadio!

Marty Brennaman has placed the Reds on notice that he wants to do more broadcasts with his son, Thom Brennaman. At this point in his career, Marty gets what Marty wants (see: Dunn, Adam). What does this mean for 2012 Reds fans? Well, here’s a Wordcloud from their most recent co-broadcast:

via Wordle.com

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Sunday: If Political Reporter Was Interesting

We are all pretty much resigned to the fact that the Votto Window™ will be closing over the next 24 months. After that, we can brace ourselves for a serious fire sale the likes of which not experienced since the Houston Astros traded Joe Morgan to the Reds. When it happens, let’s hope that our farm system is strong enough to prevent us from having to sign John Boehner to a minor-league deal.

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