Who wouldn’t want this guy?

Three messages awaited Kevin Towers when he arrived at the San Diego Padres’ offices Wednesday. They were from co-workers in the baseball-operations office wondering when, exactly, Towers decided to sign Jose Lima.
All of them had read a story from the Dominican Republic in which El Caribe newspaper reported that Lima said he would sign a one-year, $1.7 million contract with the Padres.
Towers laughed. No such deal existed.
“Frankly,” the Padres general manager said, “that would make us look like buffoons.”
Towers wasn’t trying to be callous. It’s just that Lima’s 2005 season with the Royals rivals the Titanic in terms of success, and even in this inflated market for starting pitching, Lima figures to get no more than a minor-league deal with an invitation to major-league camp.
Whatever prompted Lima to talk of a deal that didn’t exist, it only makes Joe Klein’s life tougher. He is Lima’s agent. His job is to create a market where none exists so Lima doesn’t resort to playing Pinocchio.
“I don’t think it hurts,” Klein said Wednesday. “I hope not.”
Because Klein has spent months already aiming to convince teams that his client is salvageable goods.
“He’s fun,” Klein said. “He’s sincere. He really is a good guy. He’ll show up to every charity event. He signs autographs.”
All true — and so is the fact that Lima lost 16 games last year.
“You can’t give up on a guy who, at one point in his career, won 21 games,” Klein countered. “He’s shown he can.”
He’s also shown he can pitch like he did in 2005, when Lima’s 6.99 ERA set the record for the worst mark in baseball history for a pitcher with more than 30 starts.
“When people don’t believe in him is when he gets fired up and gets it done,” Klein said. “That seems to motivate him.”
Give Klein this much: He’s trying. He’s unearthing every bit of positive information to offset the specter of last season’s numbers.
Not only can Lima pitch, but if you’re in a pinch for a national anthem singer, he’s your man!
Seriously, it’s not an easy job.
Fourteen years ago, when in the Dominican Republic during the offseason, Klein — real-estate lawyer by trade, sports agent on the side — met Lima, a precocious teenager who had finished his third pro season at Class A Lakeland. They hit it off, and Lima’s been with Klein ever since, through good and bad.
The good: In 1999, Lima went 21-10 with Houston and finished fourth in Cy Young voting. Four years later, after pitching in the independent Atlantic League, Lima went to the Royals midseason and won his first seven decisions. With Los Angeles the next season, Lima notched the Dodgers’ first playoff victory in 16 years.
The bad: He collapsed in Houston, flamed out in his second go-around with Detroit and made history — albeit the bad kind — with the Royals last season.
“We needed somebody to take the ball every fifth day,” Royals general manager Allard Baird said. “We were in a total rebuilding mode. We had young pitchers who had maxed out their innings pitched. We didn’t want them to throw. That’s what factored in. He’d take the ball. And he’d take the bullet.”
Bullets do cost. On top of Lima’s base salary of $2.5 million last season, he earned $1.25 million in bonuses for the number of starts he made. The money has grown even greater this offseason, as pitchers lap up millions in a market inflated particularly for pitchers.
And still, six weeks before spring training starts, Lima remains unemployed and available to every team except Kansas City.
“I see guys who have signed two-year deals and know I’m better than that guy,” Lima said earlier this week from the Dominican Republic, where he won a winter league playoff game for Aguilas on Tuesday. “I know I can get guys out. I believe in myself. I know I’ll go to spring training, bust my (rear) and make a team.”
Klein said his phone calls have yielded at least a couple of bites, including a possible minor-league deal with San Diego. Japan, where Lima is immensely popular, is always a possibility. With baseball’s dearth of starting pitching, Baird believes Lima is bound to get at least a shot at making a team. And Lima — well, it’s easy to figure out what Lima thinks.
“It’s always Lima Time,” he said. “What you see from Lima is what you get.”
If it’s anything like 2005, that’s not good.
So forget that, Klein said. New year, new season.
“And remember this,” Klein said, sounding like he was ready to unleash his most convincing reasoning yet. “He’s only 33.”
In the peddling of Jose Lima, every little thing counts. But only if it’s true.