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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. FIRST PITCH: Matt Harvey is scheduled to face batters on Friday at Mets camp. However, like Thursday’s batting-practice sessions during the first full-squad workout, the hitters will be tracking balls and not swinging. So it really is a glorified session throwing off a mound, with position players happening to be standing in the batter’s box. Unfortunately, the forecast is for consistent rain in Port St. Lucie on Friday morning. Friday’s news reports: • Harvey’s first game since undergoing Tommy John surgery will take place next Friday. He is due to face the Detroit Tigers in a Grapefruit League game at Tradition Field, which SNY will televise. Noah Syndergaard will pitch after him that day. Dillon Gee will throw the first Mets pitch of spring training. He is due to start two days earlier, at ESPN Wide World of Sports against the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday. Check the full rotation schedule for the opening week of games here. Read more in Newsday. • Harvey will be the subject of an E:60 special on his comeback from Tommy John surgery, which is expected to be televised April 4. Watch the moving trailer here. 
Adam RubinDaniel Murphy addresses his contract status Thursday at Mets camp. • Daniel Murphy indicated he is willing to speak to the Mets in-season about a contract extension, but a team source told ESPNNewYork.com that no talks are expected to occur. Given their depth of upper-level middle-infield prospects, highlighted by Dilson Herrera, the Mets likely will let Murphy walk as a free agent next winter. Read more in the Post, Record, Newsday and at MLB.com. • SportsCenter’s bus tour of MLB camps stopped by Port St. Lucie on Thursday, with Karl Ravech and Curt Schilling on board. Watch a video interview produced by the SportsCenter crew with David Wright here. Also, Schilling looks at what went wrong with Wright in 2014 here, what the Mets can expect from Harvey here, the player to watch here, and the biggest keys to the season here. • Jeff Passan at Yahoo chats with Harvey. • Lucas Duda will not be permitted to swing for at least another week because of a strained intercostal muscle on his left side, Terry Collins said Thursday. Read more in the Post and Daily News and at NJ.com and MLB.com. • Bobby Parnell faced batters for the first time since his Tommy John surgery on Thursday. • Newly installed commissioner Rob Manfred reiterated he has no problem with the Mets’ finances. "I'm confident the Mets' finances are in acceptable condition, and that they have available to them the resources to field a very competitive club,” Manfred told Steven Marcus in Newsday. As for Fred Wilpon being named chair of MLB’s finance committee, Manfred told the newspaper: "I think it's important to understand the role of the finance committee. It reviews very senior-level compensation and internal financial matters. Fred is a long-experienced businessman very capable of handling those matters, and this committee has nothing to do with any investment made by or on behalf of baseball. So I don't see the issues.'' • Buster Posey topped Wright in the finals of MLB’s “Face of MLB contest.” • Wright tells Matt Ehalt in the Record the Mets have expended enough hot air hyping the team. "It’s one of those things where -- I’ve been guilty of this, too -- where you get confident in this group of guys and you’re asked a question and you answer it honestly, and we’ve kind of talked a big game this offseason," Wright told Ehalt."It’s now a matter of shutting up and going out there and playing. We’ve already done a pretty good job of, I think, publically expressing what we expect from ourselves this year, but it’s enough of the talk. Now it’s a matter of going out there and preparing for opening day." Read more in the Daily News. • Collins said Thursday’s speech before the first full-squad workout was not “rah, rah.” “I think he got his message across,” Michael Cuddyer told columnist Ken Davidoff in the Post. “I think everybody heard it. Short, sweet, to the point.” Read more in the Times, Post and at NJ.com. • Johan Santana's comeback bid continues. He signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday. Santana, 35, has not appeared in a major league game since Aug. 17, 2012 as a Met. • Marc Carig in Newsday profiles Steven Matz, the left-hander from Long Island whose early professional career was stalled by a length rehab from Tommy John surgery. One scout compared Matz to the Rays’ Matt Moore. Another told Carig he resembles the Angels’ Tyler Skaggs. • Neil Best in Newsday has a Q&A with the SNY team, while Seth Everett on his blog chats with SNY field reporter Steve Gelbs. • Jared Diamond in the Journal addresses how overworking in spring training can lead to injuries, and what the Mets will do to try to limit workloads. • Sean Ratliff, the former Mets outfield prospect whose career was derailed by getting his in the eye with a baseball, is back with the organization as the hitting coach at Kingsport. • From the bloggers … Faith and Fear takes a deep dive into a vintage Shea Stadium Old-Timers’ Day. … Mets Report asserts the club does not want Murphy back. BIRTHDAYS: Pete Smith turns 49. ... Anthony Seratelli, in Japan this season after playing a year ago with Las Vegas, is 32. TWEET OF THE DAY: YOU’RE UP: How many wins will the Mets produce in 2015?
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