"The Mets' rebuilding effort hit a bit of a stumbling block yesterday, when restrictions on how much teams can pay draft picks and international free agents were included in MLB's new collective bargaining agreement.

"We traditionally haven't gone crazy with draft picks, but we did go over this past year," assistant GM John Ricco said of the team's spending on the draft. "Now you have to talk about different strategies with each pick."

The changes, which include different levels of penalties depending on how much a team spends over a specified threshold, could have more of an impact on a team like the Mets, which is in the middle of a rebuilding phase that is focused on the draft."