When the subject is how specialized certain aspects of baseball have become, we often think first about relief pitching. Fifty years ago, a reliever was little more than a failed starter who mopped up in those infrequent cases a starter didn’t go nine innings. Today, ideally a team has a dependable reliever for each of the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.

The days of the fixed lineup are long gone as well in this age of specialization. Only seven big league teams used the same lineup as many as 10 times in 2008. Ned Yost and Dale Sveum, the Milwaukee Brewers manager who was fired in mid-September and his replacement, used three different batting orders 10 or more times. Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was the only other skipper to use more than one lineup at least 10 times (twice), and he called on his favorite in a major league-high 19 games. Yes, just 19. That’s not a typo.

On the flip side, eight teams never used the same batting order more than five times in 2008. They were the Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Oakland Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays. The Royals never used the same lineup more than three times all season. The others all used their most common lineups five times.