“Lima Time” headed for unsuspecting new shores
With the winter meetings over, the hall of fame debates dying down, and all the interesting free agents already signed, we figured there’s no better way to liven up the early January baseball doldrums than with a Jose Lima update!
After going 0-3 with an 8.79 ERA in four starts for the Mets in 2006, Lima took his show on the road, playing last season for the Saraperos de Saltillo of the Mexican League. But Mexico is pretty close to America, and
Lima was already well known in the Spanish-speaking world, so his arrival really couldn’t have been all that more exciting, beyond the naturally high levels of excitement that accompany any Jose Lima start.
But now Lima is set to introduce a whole new continent to his spicy Latin singing, his gravity-defying wife, his incurable genital herpes, and his 80-mph fastball.
Yes it’s true, the Kia Tigers, cellar dwellers of the Korean League, are on the verge of signing Lima to become their new ace. According to the Korea Times, “The Tigers hope that Lima could be a top-of-the-rotation starter for them.”
Lima would be the crown jewel in an offseason in which the Tigers have also signed fellow Major League castoffs Wilson Valdez, Jae-Weong Seo, and Hee-Seop Choi. I suppose it says something about just how bad the Kia Tigers and/or Korean baseball are that they are hoping that Wilson Valdez, who hit .211/.254/.277 in 256 major league at-bats can be “a power threat to protect Choi and Lee Hyun-gon at the heart of the batting order.”
Also of note is the fact that all four of the new players recently played for the Los Angeles Dodgers. If the Tigers are still looking for another pitcher, I’m pretty sure Mark Hendrickson is still a free agent.
In any case, it’s clear that once Lima Time hits, Korea will never be the same. Or as the Koreans will soon be saying:
?? ??! Believe it!
January 7th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Actually Kia is the most winningest team in Korean baseball history. They aren’t perenial cellar dwellers at all.
Korean baseball is about equal to Double A baseball in the states. Japan is about equal to Triple A. Valdez had an .OBP over .400 OBP in Las Vegas last year. He’ll be pretty good in Korea.
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January 7th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I know both korean baseball and MLB. In my opinion, roughly speaking, korean baseball league is between AA and AAA while japanese baseball league is between AAA and MLB. But this does not mean that all AAA players will play well at korea nor that all MLB players will be MVPs at japan. They have different styles. You must know that some top AAA players who played in korean league were ejected after a couple of months because of their poor performances.
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