Astros owner Jim Crane said on Monday the team "may make a run" at re-signing Gerrit Cole, but intimated he would rather stay below baseball's competitive balance tax.

In his final year before free agency, Cole won the American League ERA title and set a franchise-record with 326 strikeouts. He is guaranteed a top-two finish in the AL Cy Young voting and, at 29 years old, will command a massive salary on the open market.

According to Spotrac, the Astros already have $148,358,333 committed to their 2020 payroll. Justin Verlander's offseason extension — at $33 million per season — kicks in, as does the one Jose Altuve signed in the 2018 offseason. Altuve will make $29 million. Zack Greinke, the team's ballyhooed deadline acquisition, will make nearly $25 million, too. In all, six Astros players are set to make more than $12 million during the 2020 season.

Asked if the team has financial flexibility to make a "legitimate run" at Cole, Crane said "we don't know yet."

"We'll see where we end up after the year. We may make a run at it. We're not sure yet," Crane said. "We're going to wait and see what else unfolds and who else is going to stay on the team.

"There's a lot of moves that Jeff (Luhnow) will probably make in the offseason. We're going to keep a very close eye on it, communicate and see where that ends up. He's had a great year. He's young and he's likely going to command a big salary."

Crane said he would "prefer not to" exceed the sport's competitive balance tax which, in 2020, is a $208 million total payroll. Clubs that exceed the threshold for the first time must pay a 20 percent tax on all overages.

"It's too early to say right now. We'd prefer not to get into that," Crane said. There's only three or four teams over it, and they have a lot more money than we do

"But we may win the World Series, so you never know."