Welcome to Clevelinks, a new feature recapping the previous weekend’s Indians news and Wahoo’s on First commentary, as well as the best Tribe analysis from other sites.
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Indians News
- The Indians signed two once-headline names to minor-league contracts: Jason Giambi and Daisuke Matsuzaka.
- Speaking of minor-league pitcher signings, Scott Kazmir says he chose to sign with Cleveland because of Terry Francona.
- This is presented as pure speculation, but Paul Hoynes suggests that the Indians are “well positioned” to sign Michael Bourn or Kyle Lohse, the best remaining free agents on the market.
- Been a while since we’ve heard from Grady Sizemore, hasn’t it? The Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo hears that teams are waiting until he is further along in recovering from his September knee surgery before considering signing him.
- Matt LaPorta claims to be pain-free after spending 2012 being bothered by his left hip.
- SportsTime Ohio will televise 159 Indians games in 2013.
- Spring Training has started!
Wahoo’s on First Highlights
- In last week’s Wroundtable, we debated whether or not the Indians should sign Jim Thome.
Tribe Analysis
- Two great profiles of Cleveland players: Bud Shaw on Nick Swisher and MLB.com’s Zack Meisel on Chris Perez.
- Bob Toth at Did the Tribe Win Last Night? writes about the Indians’ new direction for 2013.
- Ryan McCrystal from It’s Pronounced “Lajaway” boils Justin Masterson‘s 2012 struggles down to one thing: locating his sinker.
Shameless Self-Promotion
- Voting is underway for the 2013 SABR Analytics Research awards yesterday at SABR.org, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, and The Hardball Times. I am among the nominees in the “Contemporary Baseball Commentary” category (the second one on the ballot) for an article I wrote entitled “Did Hall of Fame’s Founders Want Voters to Judge With Their Eyes?”. If you like my work I would appreciate your support; either way, please take a few minutes to read and support some of the best baseball writing around.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Lewie is a junior at Brown University (concentrating in economics and political science) and has been a Tribe fan literally since before he can remember. His playing career never panned out, as he realized in T-ball that he was better at calculating other people's batting averages than increasing his own, but he still hopes to work inside the game one day. He also contributes to 
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