It's been a wild few weeks for the Astros and their fans as owner Jim Crane has whipped out the check book, signing Jose Altuve to a 5-year $125 million extension, and closer Josh Hader to a 5-year $95 million deal.

Despite Crane committing $220 million of guaranteed money, all anyone in Houston can say is, “What about Bregman?”

Astros GM Dana Brown said recently the team plans on making Bregman an offer, but there's not a timetable set right now. So as we patiently wait to see what the future holds for Bregman, we're starting to hear some rumblings from the media about the situation.

USA Today's Bob Nightengale shared his two cents on the matter in his Notebook on Sunday.

The Houston Astros plan to make All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman a contract offer before he hits free agency, but it’s not expected to come close to the $300 million over 10 years it likely will take to keep him.
No Astros player has ever received a contract longer than six years or more than $150 million.

Nightengale basically echoed Brown's statement from last week, which isn't really new information. But saying the contract offer isn't likely to come close to what Bregman is looking for is interesting. While it's good news the Astros are planning on making a run at Breggy, it's definitely bad news for Alex if they only intend to pay him half of what he's looking for.

While not surprising, this does line up with what many have come to expect from the Astros. They don't hand out deals over six or seven years, and they certainly don't offer contracts in the $300 million range. While Bregman could command that on the open market, the idea of paying Bregman more than twice as much as Altuve or Yordan Alvarez seems doubtful at best.

Our best guess is Houston will offer Bregman a deal similar to the one they offered Carlos Correa (5-years, $160 million). And we know how that turned out. Correa moved on and so did the Astros with Jeremy Pena.

32 million dollars a year for 5 years is nothing to sneeze at. But you can't blame Bregman for wanting to cash in this offseason. He turns 30 in March, so this is his best chance to land a 10-year mega-deal if that's his top priority.

Another note from Nightengale caught our attention

The Astros have already sold a franchise-record 22,000 season tickets. If the organization is considering handing Breggy a massive deal, it doesn't hurt to be selling a historic amount of season tickets. The money has to come from somewhere.

At the end of the day, the contract uncertainty doesn't seem to be impacting him negatively. He's still behaving like one of the team leaders. He and his wife Reagan recently helped welcome Josh Hader and his wife to the organization.

Maybe there's still a chance he returns.