Marlins beat Stallings in arbitratration; Judge & Fried left

MIAMI (AP) » The Miami Marlins beat Jacob Stallings in salary arbitration on Saturday, and the catcher will earn $2.45 million this season rather than his $3.1 million request.

The decision gave teams a 9-3 advantage with just two cases remaining to be heard next week, involving New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and Atlanta left-hander Max Fried.

Richard McNeill, Gary Klendellen and Fredric Horowitz made the decision on Stallings, a day after hearing arguments.

Stallings hit .246 last year for Pittsburgh with career bests of eight homers and 53 RBIs, earning $1.3 million. He entered Saturday with a .199 average, two homers and 21 RBIs.

No statistics or evidence from after March 1 are admissible other than contract and salary comparisons. The timing was set when Major League Baseball

and the players’ association agreed to the deal that ended the lockout.

Losing in earlier decisions were Atlanta outfielder Adam Duvall ($9,275,000), Braves third baseman Austin Riley ($3.95 million), injured Atlanta reliever Luke Jackson ($3.6 million), St. Louis outfielder Tyler O’Neill ($3.4 million), Kansas City infielder Nicky Lopez ($2.55 million), Miami righthander Pablo López ($2.45 million), Milwaukee righthander Adrian Houser ($2,425,000) and Cincinnati pitcher Lucas Sims ($1.2 million).

Winning were Atlanta shortstop Dansby Swanson ($10 million), Seattle second baseman/outfielder Adam Frazier ($8 million) and Kansas City outfielder Andrew Benintendi ($8.5 million).

Arbitration hearings usually are held during the first three weeks of February but were delayed by the lockout.