Fair enough. I didn't see anything about that in the help or man page, perhaps a note should be added there?

On Wed., 30 Sep. 2020, 7:11 am Pádraig Brady, <P@draigbrady.com> wrote:
On 29/09/2020 15:20, Assaf Gordon wrote:
>
>> On 29/09/2020 02:18, ned haughton wrote:
>>> When splitting with -d, the numbering screws up after 89:
>
> In addition to Pádraig explanation, please see previous similar
> discussion here:
>     https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2017-02/msg00050.html
>     http://bugs.gnu.org/25832

That reminds me it was also discussed at:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/coreutils-gotchas.html#split