There may be no greater divide in top prospect evaluations this year than the one surrounding New York Yankees infielder George Lombard Jr., ranked as high as No. 36 by Baseball America and as low as No. 98 by MLB.com.
On the April 25 episode of Baseball America’s “Future Projection” podcast, co-hosts Ben Badler and Carlos Collazo offered a hint as to why opinions might be so split. Because to the trained eye, Lombard’s talent jumps out, even if his numbers don’t necessarily look the part.
Even Opposing Scouts Cannot Deny the Skills of George Lombard Jr.
Drafted by the Yankees in the first round (26th overall) of the 2023 draft, Lombard followed the script later that summer during short stints at rookie ball and Class A Tampa, combining for a .311 average and .466 on-base percentage in 13 games. But his first full season in 2024 didn’t look so pretty, as he slashed .231/.338/.334 over 310 at bats with Tampa and 115 more at High-A Hudson Valley.
However, when talking with baseball people to gather notes and opinions for compiling the top 100 list, Badler and Collazo said Lombard was “maybe the most discussed prospect” as representatives from many different organizations felt the need to put in their two cents.
“The amount of positive scout feedback on him, I can’t think of another player that we’ve heard just more really encouraging feedback from the industry on than Lombard,” Collazo said.
“The gap between where the scouting feedback is relative to where his actual performance was last year, because it wasn’t a terrible year, but it wasn’t a good year that he had last year,” Badler added. “And yet when we were putting together our top 100 it seemed like everybody in a front office who we asked about, ‘Who should we move higher, who should we move lower?’ almost everybody was like, “Oh, you need to have George Lombard Jr higher.’”
Lombard is proving worthy of the bump so far this season.
In 19 games and 62 at bats at Hudson Valley, the right-handed swinging shortstop is slashing .306/.494/.452, with more walks (20) than strikeouts (18). Lombard has hit one home run and four doubles with eight RBIs, 16 runs scored and nine stolen bases.
“This guy’s got the goods,” said Ryan Garcia of the Fireside Yankees podcast.
And while Lombard has just six total home runs in his 532 professional at bats, Badler stressed that the power will come for the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder, who will only turn 20 on June 2.
“You can see the power is in there to go with a pretty crisp swing,” Badler said. “He doesn’t have to sell out or get long with his swing to try to get to his power, and there’s still been some swing-and-miss there, but he’s only 19 years old. I think he has a chance to have a really good balance of both on base skills and power. We’ve seen the raw power flash, but we haven’t seen the game power show up consistently yet, and I think that’s something that’s just going to come, whether it’s this year or the next couple years, and I think when it happens, he’s just going to explode.”
Geoerge Lombard Jr. Appears Ready to ‘Explode’
Lombard showed glimpses of that during spring training, launching a pair of “moonshots” among his early camp highlights that had some suggesting a potential leap to the majors. Perhaps a big premature for that, but Garcia said a promotion to Double-A Somerset before his birthday would not be a surprise.
“I think the Yankees would be happy to promote him to Double-A if he continues to perform this way,” Garcia said.
“A big month of May, it’s going to be hard to ignore. And it’s not like there’s a shortstop that’s particularly in his way right now uh at the Double-A level.”
And whatever team he is playing for, Lombard will supply elite defense at the shortstop position.
“He’s just really well rounded,” Collazo said. “There’s not a tool that he doesn’t have.”
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