The New York Yankees have given away a lot of young talent to land a slew of All-Star veterans in recent seasons.
The team traded away a catcher and four pitchers, including Michael King, to land Juan Soto and Trent Grisham ahead of the 2024 campaign. And then it traded away Caleb Durbin and Cody Poteet in a pair of moves that added Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams this past winter.
But the team has managed to hold onto some of its promising youngsters, including 19-year-old infielder George Lombard Jr.
The Yankees picked Lombard in the first round of the 2023 Major League Baseball draft as he showed some intriguing tools playing for a Florida prep school. It surely helped that he’s the son of long-time major league outfielder George Lombard Sr., who now serves as a bench coach for the Detroit Tigers.
But even the Yankees have to be pleasantly surprised by the younger Lombard’s recent progress.
The 19-year-old was slashing a stellar .311/.466/.356 in High-A earlier this season before the Yankees opted to promote him to Double-A, where he’s already slugged a pair of homers in his first 21 at-bats.
And now he’s taken the largest leap of any baseball prospect in the MLB Pipeline rankings, jumping up 49 spots to become the No. 44 ranked player in the sport.
“Lombard was our first in-season addition to the Top 100 after a good showing in Major League camp this spring as the result of a simplified swing and added strength,” Sam Dykstra wrote for MLB.com. “Already considered a potential plus defender at shortstop, he has moved to Double-A Somerset at just 19 years old because High-A proved to be no challenge for him.”
The Yankees seem all set at shortstop with Anthony Volpe, but the rest of the infield is a question mark, particularly after a significant oblique injury to Jazz Chisholm Jr.
While the organization almost certainly wouldn’t add their teenage phenom to the big-league roster this year, no matter how well he performs in the minors, he could be knocking at the door for next season. And a promotion up to Triple-A might be imminent.
