NEW YORK -- The New York Mets are raising the price for their best box seats by as much as $12 for their top opponents next season and lowering them by $6 for their lesser rivals.

The team announced its switch Tuesday to four tiers of prices, designating 17 games as "gold," 21 as "silver," 27 as "bronze" and 16 as "value." Prices for the bronze games remain the same as last year and value games are lower, while gold and silver are higher.

Just as the Yankees did earlier this month, the Mets cited baseball's new Collective Bargaining Agreement as a reason for the overall increase.

"Our average ticket price increase of 4 percent -- following no increase in 2002 -- is essentially a cost-of-living adjustment, intended primarily to help offset substantially increased operating costs to the club under the new Basic Agreement, while maintaining our goal of fielding a contending team," Mets vice president Bill Ianniciello said.

The top ticket price will be charged for opening day, the three games against the Yankees, a three-game series against Atlanta in May, a three-game series against Seattle in June, fireworks night against Montreal on July 2 and three-game series against St. Louis and San Francisco in August.

The lowest price will be charged for midweek games against Houston in April, Philadelphia in May, Milwaukee in June, and Florida and Pittsburgh in September.

The best box seats, which include waiter service and are available only as part of season tickets, cost $72, $66, $60 or $54, depending on the game. The top tickets for individual games -- inner field box and inner loge box -- cost $53, $48, $43 and $38,

Outer field box, outer loge box and mezzanine box cost $39, $36, $33 and $30, while loge reserved costs $33, $31, $29 and $27.

Mezzanine reserved and upper box cost $27, $25, $23 and $19, and upper reserved, loge reserved back rows and mezzanine reserved back rows cost $16, $14, $12 and $8.

Additional discounts will be available for some games, when upper reserved seats will cost as little as $4.