If it ain't broke, keep fixing it? The ever-changing Marlins batting order

It's generally a bad sign when your team has something in common with the Chicago White Sox. Well, the Miami Marlins do.

Entering Sunday, these are the only two MLB teams that have yet to repeat a batting order during the 2025 season. In the 26 games that the Marlins have played, they have deployed 26 different lineup configurations, making daily changes to the position players they're using, how they're sequenced one through nine in the order, or both.

Here are all 26, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:

This isn't specifically a Clayton McCullough thing, a Peter Bendix thing or an example of analytics going too far. The 2023 Marlins, who were managed by Skip Schumaker and overseen by Kim Ng, used 151 different batting orders. The single-season franchise record was set in 2022—Don Mattingly used 154 combinations during the final year of his managerial tenure. Prior to the implementation of the universal designated hitter, Marlins batting orders almost always included a starting pitcher in the No. 9 spot. That new rule has unlocked more plausible batting order permutations.

Kyle Stowers and Dane Myers have been the ultimate batting order nomads, making starts in six different spots through the first month of the season.

So far in 2025, the availability of key players has been the main driver of the incessant lineup shake-ups. The Marlins entered the season with Connor Norby and Jesús Sánchez sidelined by oblique strains, both of whom they had planned to start the vast majority of the time. Platoons were prevalent at third base and in the outfield during their absences. A few days before Norby and Sánchez were reinstated from the injured list, primary catcher Nick Fortes went down, coincidentally with the same diagnosis.

It's still surprising that the streak of unique batting orders has lasted this long considering the stability at the top with Xavier Edwards occupying the leadoff spot every single game. In addition to Stowers, Norby, Sánchez and Edwards, Otto Lopez is a platoon-proof regular. Recently recalled Agustín Ramírez seems to be on his way to joining them. There are only so many ways to shuffle the deck when most of the names are constants.

While the White Sox own MLB's lowest OPS and rank near the bottom of most other offensive categories, the Marlins have defied projections to be respectable at the plate. Their offense is just a smidge below league average in terms of wRC+, on pace to be the franchise's best since 2017.

A Marlins batting order I hope will be reused in the near future was the one that debuted on April 22:

What has been your favorite batting order of the season?