After talking about how unlikely it is that the Astros would sign Jose Abreu on the latest podcast we get this tweet from Buster Olney:

Bidding on Cuba defector Jose Abreu is expected to be for a $70 million deal, sources say. White Sox,Astros, Rangers viewed as frontrunners. — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) October 16, 2013

Interesting.

Now I will say that we did leave open the small possibility that the Astros would go after Jose Abreu, but we leaned towards the Astros being more efficient with their money this offseason. $70 million is a lot of money and probably takes up a good chunk of Jeff Luhnow's spending money this offseason so I question how serious the Astros really are.

As noted in the MLB Trade Rumors article, Yoenis Cespedes signed for four years at $36MM and Yasiel Puig signed for seven years at $42MM. $70MM is a huge jump from that, but the six years and a $54MM in the article seems like a more reasonable number. While Abreu may have a better bat than Cespedes and Puig he lakes the positional versatility that those other two have so I really have a hard time seeing the Astros spend $70MM on a first basemen unless the scouting department and the analytical department says he can be a Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera or Joey Votto type of hitter. That's a really high bar and a big risk for anyone willing to spend that much money. Even if the deal is 10 years for $70MM I have a hard time seeing the Astros committing to that kind of deal. They do after all have Jon Singleton at AAA.

Either way I think this shows the Astros are serious about spending money this offseason, which is simply awesome.