The MLB Team Upending Everything You Thought You Knew About Batting Orders - WSJ
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The Philadelphia Phillies are overturning 125 years of baseball tradition by placing power-hitting slugger Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot and contact hitter Luis Arraez in the cleanup position, defying conventional wisdom and achieving remarkable success in the process.
The MLB Team Upending Everything You Thought You Knew About Batting Orders - WSJ
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https://www.wsj.com/sports/baseball/phillies-lineup-schwarber-arraez-23fbe50d
1. Sports
2. Baseball
The MLB Team Upending Everything You Thought You Knew About Batting Orders
The Philadelphia Phillies are challenging more than a century of baseball orthodoxy around how to construct a lineup—and it’s helping them charge into the playoffs
By
Jared Diamond
Sept. 22, 2026 7:00 am ET
---
!The Philadelphia Phillies use slugger Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot.
*The Philadelphia Phillies use slugger Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot. Nick Wass/Associated Press*
The established formula for constructing a baseball lineup has been dogma for roughly 125 years. A pesky contact hitter with a high average and propensity for reaching base goes first, while the beefy slugger capable of launching moonshots into the bleachers lives in the middle to drive in runners.
Then you have the 2026 Philadelphia Phillies, who have as much reverence for tradition as a tourist with the audacity to ask for Camembert on his cheesesteak.
The Phillies are on the verge of clinching a playoff spot for the fifth consecutive season. They’ve accomplished this by deploying a batting order that is the complete opposite of what teams have been doing since the turn of the 20th century.
Up first for the Phillies is Kyle Schwarber, a 230-pound bruiser who is close to setting the single-season strikeout record—and also happens to be the most prodigious home-run hitter in the major leagues. Their No. 4 batter is Luis Arraez, who might be the most unconventional cleanup hitter baseball has ever seen. He is close to winning his fourth batting title and has hit fewer homers in his eight-year career than Schwarber has this season alone.
!Luis Arraez bats cleanup for the Phillies.
*Luis Arraez bats cleanup for the Phillies. Geoff Burke/Imagn Images/Reuters*
On any other club, at any other point in the history of the sport, Schwarber and Arraez almost certainly would have been switched. Philadelphia’s approach is so weird that even Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup.
“Not when I was playing,” said Mattingly, the New York Yankees’ first baseman from 1982 through 1995. “Things are changing.”
Statistics wonks have been questioning lineup orthodoxy since the dawn of the analytics revolution a quarter-century ago. Though research has generally shown that the precise batting order has only a minimal impact on a team’s overall offensive output, it is ideal to deploy the best hitters as early as possible. This approach guarantees that they receive the most at-bats over the course of a 162-game season.
That’s why many teams have begun to put their top hitter second in the order instead of third. It also explains why Schwarber has been largely ensconced in the leadoff spot since joining the Phillies in 2022. Despite his inflated strikeout rate, low batting average and inability to steal bases, he is Philadelphia’s most powerful hitter and consistently posts a high on-base percentage because of how often he draws walks.
Arraez in the four-hole is more innovative—and, at first, harder to understand. He has the exact profile of somebody who would bat at the top of the lineup. He almost never strikes out and rarely delivers hits that aren’t singles.
“Twenty years ago,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said, “it’d be automatic he’d hit first or second.
Other teams tried that strategy with Arraez. It never seemed to work. He was traded before the 2023 season and then again midway through the 2024 campaign. He struggled to find a job as a free agent last winter, ultimately settling for a one-year, $12 million contract with the San Francisco Giants in February. Then in August, the Giants dealt Arraez again, sending him to his fifth team in five seasons.
So the Phillies decided to try something different. What if, Mattingly pondered, Arraez had been miscast as a leadoff hitter all along? What if instead his barrage of singles came with men on base? The answer is they would result in more scoring, considering Schwarber and superstar Bryce Harper would be hitting in front of him. It helps that Arraez entered Tuesday with a lifetime batting average of .349 with runners in scoring position.
His impact has been unmistakable. The Phillies averaged 4.39 runs per game before the addition of Arraez, 16th-best in MLB. They rank ninth since Mattingly rolled out his funky lineup with 4.67 runs per game.
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“Luis,” Mattingly said, “gets his hits.”
!Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup.
*Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press*
The Phillies aren’t necessarily the obvious candidate to be trying something so cutting edge. The 70-year-old Dombrowski has been working in baseball for nearly 50 years and is the oldest executive in the game. At 65, Mattingly is one of the oldest managers.
Dombrowski said he didn’t envision what the lineup would look like when he acquired Arraez—but he definitely didn’t picture him batting cleanup. He just knew Arraez was a prolific hitter who would help the Phillies.
Mattingly came up with the idea after considering all the options. He didn’t want to move Schwarber or Harper, nor did he want three consecutive lefties at the top. Schwarber first and Arraez fourth was the solution.
It isn’t mainstream—and it’s sure to perplex more old-school fans—but it has worked.
“It does just tell you,” Dombrowski said, “how the game has changed.”
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the September 23, 2026, print edition as 'The Phillies Are Upending Batting Order Tradition'.
Jared Diamond is a sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in New York. He joined the Journal's sports department in 2011 and since then has covered World Series, Super Bowls, NBA Finals, Final Fours, College Football Championships and more. Jared is also the author of the book “Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution,” which was published in 2020 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
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OPINION
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Further Reading
These Teams Have Been Utterly Mediocre. They’re Vying for the Playoffs Anyway.
The Tactical ‘Farce’ Turning Baseball Games Into Slow-Pitch Softball
The Princeton Basketball Player Managing Baseball’s Most Improbable Turnaround
Dave Winfield Was Drafted by the MLB Out of High School, but Chose College Instead
Why I Spent $1.7 Billion on the Baltimore Orioles
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* What to Read Next
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* Use Alt + Down Arrow to expand.
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* Latest Headlines
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* World
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Advertisement
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by
our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact
Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.
https://www.wsj.com/sports/baseball/phillies-lineup-schwarber-arraez-23fbe50d
1. Sports
2. Baseball
The MLB Team Upending Everything You Thought You Knew About Batting Orders
The Philadelphia Phillies are challenging more than a century of baseball orthodoxy around how to construct a lineup—and it’s helping them charge into the playoffs
By
Jared Diamond
Sept. 22, 2026 7:00 am ET
---
!The Philadelphia Phillies use slugger Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot.
*The Philadelphia Phillies use slugger Kyle Schwarber in the leadoff spot. Nick Wass/Associated Press*
The established formula for constructing a baseball lineup has been dogma for roughly 125 years. A pesky contact hitter with a high average and propensity for reaching base goes first, while the beefy slugger capable of launching moonshots into the bleachers lives in the middle to drive in runners.
Then you have the 2026 Philadelphia Phillies, who have as much reverence for tradition as a tourist with the audacity to ask for Camembert on his cheesesteak.
The Phillies are on the verge of clinching a playoff spot for the fifth consecutive season. They’ve accomplished this by deploying a batting order that is the complete opposite of what teams have been doing since the turn of the 20th century.
Up first for the Phillies is Kyle Schwarber, a 230-pound bruiser who is close to setting the single-season strikeout record—and also happens to be the most prodigious home-run hitter in the major leagues. Their No. 4 batter is Luis Arraez, who might be the most unconventional cleanup hitter baseball has ever seen. He is close to winning his fourth batting title and has hit fewer homers in his eight-year career than Schwarber has this season alone.
!Luis Arraez bats cleanup for the Phillies.
*Luis Arraez bats cleanup for the Phillies. Geoff Burke/Imagn Images/Reuters*
On any other club, at any other point in the history of the sport, Schwarber and Arraez almost certainly would have been switched. Philadelphia’s approach is so weird that even Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup.
“Not when I was playing,” said Mattingly, the New York Yankees’ first baseman from 1982 through 1995. “Things are changing.”
Statistics wonks have been questioning lineup orthodoxy since the dawn of the analytics revolution a quarter-century ago. Though research has generally shown that the precise batting order has only a minimal impact on a team’s overall offensive output, it is ideal to deploy the best hitters as early as possible. This approach guarantees that they receive the most at-bats over the course of a 162-game season.
That’s why many teams have begun to put their top hitter second in the order instead of third. It also explains why Schwarber has been largely ensconced in the leadoff spot since joining the Phillies in 2022. Despite his inflated strikeout rate, low batting average and inability to steal bases, he is Philadelphia’s most powerful hitter and consistently posts a high on-base percentage because of how often he draws walks.
Arraez in the four-hole is more innovative—and, at first, harder to understand. He has the exact profile of somebody who would bat at the top of the lineup. He almost never strikes out and rarely delivers hits that aren’t singles.
“Twenty years ago,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said, “it’d be automatic he’d hit first or second.
Other teams tried that strategy with Arraez. It never seemed to work. He was traded before the 2023 season and then again midway through the 2024 campaign. He struggled to find a job as a free agent last winter, ultimately settling for a one-year, $12 million contract with the San Francisco Giants in February. Then in August, the Giants dealt Arraez again, sending him to his fifth team in five seasons.
So the Phillies decided to try something different. What if, Mattingly pondered, Arraez had been miscast as a leadoff hitter all along? What if instead his barrage of singles came with men on base? The answer is they would result in more scoring, considering Schwarber and superstar Bryce Harper would be hitting in front of him. It helps that Arraez entered Tuesday with a lifetime batting average of .349 with runners in scoring position.
His impact has been unmistakable. The Phillies averaged 4.39 runs per game before the addition of Arraez, 16th-best in MLB. They rank ninth since Mattingly rolled out his funky lineup with 4.67 runs per game.
Advertisement
“Luis,” Mattingly said, “gets his hits.”
!Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup.
*Phillies manager Don Mattingly began to laugh when he was asked if he could have ever imagined such a freakish lineup. Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press*
The Phillies aren’t necessarily the obvious candidate to be trying something so cutting edge. The 70-year-old Dombrowski has been working in baseball for nearly 50 years and is the oldest executive in the game. At 65, Mattingly is one of the oldest managers.
Dombrowski said he didn’t envision what the lineup would look like when he acquired Arraez—but he definitely didn’t picture him batting cleanup. He just knew Arraez was a prolific hitter who would help the Phillies.
Mattingly came up with the idea after considering all the options. He didn’t want to move Schwarber or Harper, nor did he want three consecutive lefties at the top. Schwarber first and Arraez fourth was the solution.
It isn’t mainstream—and it’s sure to perplex more old-school fans—but it has worked.
“It does just tell you,” Dombrowski said, “how the game has changed.”
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the September 23, 2026, print edition as 'The Phillies Are Upending Batting Order Tradition'.
Jared Diamond is a sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in New York. He joined the Journal's sports department in 2011 and since then has covered World Series, Super Bowls, NBA Finals, Final Fours, College Football Championships and more. Jared is also the author of the book “Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution,” which was published in 2020 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
---
Videos
Advertisement
---
Most Popular News
---
Most Popular
OPINION
---
Further Reading
These Teams Have Been Utterly Mediocre. They’re Vying for the Playoffs Anyway.
The Tactical ‘Farce’ Turning Baseball Games Into Slow-Pitch Softball
The Princeton Basketball Player Managing Baseball’s Most Improbable Turnaround
Dave Winfield Was Drafted by the MLB Out of High School, but Chose College Instead
Why I Spent $1.7 Billion on the Baltimore Orioles
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Source: Wall Street Journal
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