{"id":550,"date":"2006-01-24T14:34:40","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T14:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=550"},"modified":"2013-11-30T14:35:56","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T14:35:56","slug":"benson-burners-and-other-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=550","title":{"rendered":"Benson Burners and Other Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets made a curious trade Jan. 21, sending\u00a0<strong>Kris Benson 34<\/strong>\u00a0and his mouthy wife to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for reliever<strong>Jorge Julio\u00a0<\/strong>and pitching prospect\u00a0<strong>John (Lobster) Maine.<\/strong>\u00a0Whether this move portends a trade for<strong>Barry Zito<\/strong>\u00a0or simply shifts the overpopulation problem from the starting rotation to the bullpen remains to be seen. Julio wore\u00a0<strong>No. 50\u00a0<\/strong>last year with the Orioles while Maine in his brief appearances wore\u00a0<strong>61.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 18, the Mets signed former Ham Fighter and Tokyo Giant\u00a0<strong>Yusaku Iriki\u00a0<\/strong>(You&#8217;re So Fine), who looks to compete for the longman job. Iriki wore\u00a0<strong>No. 49<\/strong>\u00a0with the Ham Fighters and\u00a0<strong>No. 20<\/strong>\u00a0with the Giants, research shows.<\/p>\n<p>We overlooked the late December addition of lefty sidearmer\u00a0<strong>Mike Venafro.<\/strong>\u00a0He has a minor league contract and spring training invite.<\/p>\n<p>Photos from the Mets Caravan revealed players in new unis including<strong>\u00a0Julio Franco in 23, Paul LoDuca in 16 and Jose Valentin in 18.\u00a0<\/strong>Newly arrived reliever\u00a0<strong>Jorge Julio<\/strong>\u00a0was wearing a jersey with<strong>no number on it.\u00a0<\/strong>MBTN reader Rich reports:\u00a0<strong>Chad Bradford\u00a0<\/strong>appeared in\u00a0<strong>No. 35, Duaner Sanchez in 40,<\/strong>\u00a0and Mets.com is selling\u00a0<strong>Bret Boone<\/strong>\u00a0jerseys bearing\u00a0<strong>No. 9.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Additional photos show\u00a0<strong>Xavier Nady wearing No. 10\u00a0<\/strong>and<strong>\u00a0Steve Schmoll in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/41-50.htm#46\">dreaded No. 46.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets made a curious trade Jan. 21, sending\u00a0Kris Benson 34\u00a0and his mouthy wife to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for relieverJorge Julio\u00a0and pitching prospect\u00a0John (Lobster) Maine.\u00a0Whether this move portends a trade forBarry Zito\u00a0or simply shifts the overpopulation problem from the starting rotation to the bullpen remains to be seen. Julio wore\u00a0No. 50\u00a0last year with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=550\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Benson Burners and Other Updates&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[214,213,217,219,154,218,209],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chad-bradford","tag-duaner-sanchez","tag-jorge-julio","tag-jose-valentin","tag-kris-benson","tag-paul-loduca","tag-xavier-nady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}