The Yankees have gone 27-27 since Aaron Judge last played on May 31 and are looking for a spark. They hope that adding Luis García and Heliot Ramos via trades will give them a boost, and that promoting their top prospect will do the same.
New York called up shortstop George Lombard Jr. before Tuesday's game against the Cardinals. He'll become the youngest Yankees infielder (21 years, 63 days) to make his big league debut since Derek Jeter on June 11, 1995 (20 years, 350 days).
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Interestingly, to make room for Lombard and Ramos, New York sent down the two players who ranked No. 1 on MLB Pipeline's organization Top 30 Prospects list entering each season from 2020-25: Jasson Domínguez and Anthony Volpe.
Ranked No. 20 among MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects, Lombard will take over for Volpe at shortstop. Volpe performed better than Lombard in the Minors and was a higher-rated prospect (No. 5 on the Top 100) when he arrived in New York, but Lombard is clearly a better athlete and possesses superior tools. Volpe has batted just .224/.287/.373 in three-plus seasons with the Yankees and Lombard is equipped to surpass those numbers while perhaps providing better defense than the 2023 Gold Glove winner.
The son of former big league outfielder and current Tigers bench coach George Lombard, he went 26th overall in the 2023 Draft out of Gulliver Prep (Miami) and signed for $3.3 million. The Marlins drafted his younger brother Jacob at No. 14 in July and inked him for $5 million.
Lombard grew up around the game, helping him develop a high baseball IQ to go with his impressive array of tools. His combination of bat speed and strength give him more raw power than most shortstops, he possesses solid speed and he exhibits fluid actions and a strong arm in the field. His savvy also translates into quality swing decisions, the ability to repeatedly barrel balls and produce high-end exit velocities and instincts that allow him to steal bases and execute difficult plays at short.
For all his tools and skills, Lombard does have a choppy track record of offensive performance in the Minors. His .280/.403/.476 performance between Double-A and Triple-A this year is the best of his career and raised his pro batting line to .248/.372/.391.
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Every time Lombard has been promoted to a new level, he has struggled initially before making adjustments. He slashed .196/.360/.299 in his first month of Triple-A this year, then .343/.452/.588 afterward while missing four weeks after spraining two fingers on his glove hand while making a tag in mid-June.
The one nagging issue in Lombard's offensive game is his below-average contact rates, both overall (30 percent of swings) and within the strike zone (17 percent). His right-handed stroke is geared to launch balls in the air but gets too uphill at times, leaving him vulnerable to quality velocity up in the strike zone. Against pitches clocked at 94 mph or higher in the upper third of the zone or above it the last two years, he has hit .167/.340/.286 with a 44 percent swing-and-miss rate.
If Lombard can close that hole, he can be a star with his 25-25 potential and Gold Glove upside. For now, the Yankees will be happy if he can settle down their shortstop position, providing more consistent offense while maintaining the quality defense they've gotten from Volpe and José Caballero.