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:

리마 타임! Believe it!

As far as I can tell, there is only one photo of Melissa Lima floating around the internet. But man, what a photo. Check it out. The photo above was taken in May of 2004, when, with his wife and son by his side, Jose Lima sang the national anthem before the start of a Dodgers game. MLB.com ran the photo of Jose, Melissa and their son as part of a “hey, see, baseball players aren’t all such dumb brutes — they can sing, too!” story. But Lima got angry when the photo started garnering attention for reason’s other than intended. The picture was quickly taken down and replaced with one in which Mrs. Lima was cropped out, but it was already too late.

Melissa Lima, for your show-stopping, gravity-defying breasts, you are a hot baseball wife.

***UPDATE***

Umpbump contributor Nick Kapur has tracked down this lesser-known but equally glorious photo of Melissa Lima. Thank you Nick!

Does anybody have a watch? Excuse me, can you tell me what time it is? Oh, what’s that you say? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat it? Oh, I see. Very good. It’s fucking LIMA TIME, baby!

From the Seattle Times:

The Mets placed Zambrano on the 60-day disabled list Sunday, and said he could be ready to pitch by spring training. Right-hander Jose Lima was brought up from Class AAA Norfolk to take Zambrano’s roster spot and started Sunday against Atlanta.

That’s right, Jose Lima is back. I know he’s washed up and I know he was never that good to begin with, but the game he pitched in the 2004 NLDS against the Cardinals was all I needed to fall in love with Lima. That day he was magical, throwing a complete game 5-hit shut out against the mighty Cardinals to stave off elimination. It was Lima’s first complete game in three years and after every big out and at the end of every inning he would point to the sky, as if he knew exactly what kind of a miracle he was participating in. Never has a pitcher exhibited more intensity or joy.