Rays Owner Stuart Sternberg said the team's payroll for the '15 season is "clearly going to be lower" than this year's franchise-record $80M, according to Marc Topkin of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. Sternberg: "We've run payroll into the ($40 million range) and gotten into the World Series and well into the playoffs, and our two highest payrolls -- the years we stepped it up (percentage-wise) were 2009 and 2014, and those are the only two years we haven't played significant September baseball." Topkin writes the amount of payroll reduction "will be interesting given the commitments" the Rays already have. Nine players already are signed for more than a combined $45M next year. The team is on pace to draw an MLB-worst 1.43 million fans this season, and Sternberg indicated that the figure is "'in a steady state' with little change based on how the team does." He said, "I don't know what'll dramatically push the attendance up. And I do believe that a number of years of really losing baseball, we're in jeopardy." Meanwhile, "nothing is imminent on the stadium situation" with St. Petersburg. Sternberg said, "I'd like to think once the season is over we can have more substantive conversations" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 9/11).
