On-Base Perception

The hunt for a spot at the All-Star Game isn’t limited just to baseball players.

Starting Saturday, MLB, in partnership with the Mets, will be conducting a city-wide scavenger hunt – the ultimate prize being tickets to All-Star Week events. The All-Star Game is being held at Citi Field this season.

The clues will be announced, one-by-one, though the All-Star Game twitter account, @AllStarGame....

ST. LOUIS -- Mets manager Terry Collins is getting hammered on sports talk radio today, which is predictable since he ventured into choppy waters by invoking fans in his defense of the way he's handled the Jordany Valdespin situation.

But what can't get lost in the noise is that within the context of the conversation yesterday, it's clear that Collins' main point wasn't to rip fans, but to...

ST. LOUIS -- Top prospect Zack Wheeler has been pitching with soreness in his collarbone over his past few starts. However, his agent on Tuesday described the decision to have the pitcher examined in New York as "totally precautionary."

"Been more of an annoyance than anything else for the last couple of starts," said Al Goetz, Wheeler's agent. "He could have continued...

The last Mets pitcher to burst onto the scene with the success and exposure that Matt Harvey is experiencing right now has been keeping an eye on the young star. And he's become a quick fan.

Dwight Gooden, appearing at the annual BTIG Commissions for Charity Day, said he has enjoyed watching Harvey in his nascent career. And you don't have to be a doctor of psychology -- or Ks -- to figure...

Here’s the first thing Mets fans need to know about the job General Manager Sandy Alderson has done over the last three seasons in Flushing: he’s acquired Zack Wheeler and Travis d’Arnaud, stud prospects kept from the major league roster by service time considerations and a freak injury, respectively.

The second thing is – wait, you still need a second thing?

Alderson has taken a lot...

The Mets added some power to their slumping lineup by signing outfielder Rick Ankiel to a major league deal.

The pitcher-turned-outfielder is a streaky hitter who strikes out a lot, but is also a legitimate home run threat. The Astros designated Ankiel for assignment last week after hitting .194 with five home runs. He’s a .243 career batter with 74 home runs in 11 seasons.

Ankiel is...

How good is Matt Harvey? Let's go to WAR to find out.

WAR is an advanced metric that calculates a player's offensive and defensive contributions over what a replacement-level player would add. The Mets righthander, who is 4-0 with a 1.28 ERA and 58 strikeouts and has two brushes with no-hitters, already owns a 1.9 WAR (using FanGraphs calculation methods) this season, or 0.27 per start. If...

A few notes as the Mets prepare to take on the Pirates on Thursday night:

1. Manager Terry Collins put a priority on loading the lineup with righthanded bats against Pirates lefty Jeff Locke. So, that means Ike Davis, Lucas Duda and Jordany Valdespin will watch as the Mets go with Justin Turner, Juan Lagares and Marlon Byrd.

Collins said the slumping Davis figures to be back in the lineup...

The Mets may take forever to win a baseball game, but give them this: they're quick with a joke.

Or at least their longtime director of media relations is.

Jay Horwitz, the team's PR guru since 1980, set off a mini firestorm on Tuesday after jokingly tweeted that Matt Harvey would be allowed to miss Wednesday's game in order to attend the Rangers playoff game at Madison Square Garden....

Each of the 30 teams in baseball have a 40-man roster, various injured players, top prospects, interesting minor league veterans, beat reporters, blogs and stat-minded followers.

Basically, we’re saying that’s a whole lot of people to follow on Twitter.

But we follow them so you don’t have to and every morning we’ll embed the top tweets from the previous 24 hours:

1. Matt Harvey’s...