The George Lombard Jr. Hype is Building

by EJ Fagan

May 8, 2025

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.

Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.

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Baseball America released its early season revision to the top 100 prospects yesterday. George Lombard Jr. shot up all the way to 23rd best prospect in baseball. BA had already been a little aggressive by ranking him 88th in baseball this offseason, but the rise is pretty incredible.

He deserves it.

The Yankees promoted him from High-A to Double-A earlier than any prospect that I can remember. They usually wait another few weeks before their first promotions.

Here’s the highlights from the 2025 season so far:

• Lombard Jr. turns 20 in June. He was the third youngest hitter in his High-A league. He faced just one pitcher older than him.

• He hit .329/.495/.488 with a 20% strikeout rate and 21% walk rate. He stole 11 bases in just 24 games.

• He was the second best hitter by wRC+ in the South Atlantic League. He was first in OBP and seventh in slugging.

• He will be the youngest hitter in the Eastern League. There are just ten qualified hitters who are twenty-one years old at the level. It’s even starker on pitching; one twenty-one year old and four twenty-two year-old qualified starters.

• He’s a solid shortstop.

Just wow. After a pedestrian 2024 season, Lombard is breaking out in a big way. Better yet: a lot of people saw this coming. He impressed a lot of non-Yankee fans during Spring Training.

Consider Fangraphs’ Eric Longhenhagan’s rapidly changing opinion. He ranked Lombard Jr. as the 4th best prospect in a mediocre system on January 31st, writing,

“Lombard entered last season as a Pick to Click. He showed exciting defense and bat-to-ball ability as an amateur, and it seemed plausible that once on a pro strength and conditioning program, he might also add meaningful power pretty quickly. Given his overall feel for the game, which was relatively polished for a high schooler, that could have led to a rapid ascent through the minors. Instead, Lombard had an uneven 2024 during which he whiffed at in-zone fastballs much more than was anticipated. Lombard’s overall contact performance was just a shade below average, except for his performance inside the strike zone, which was way below the big league average. Driven largely by his on-base ability, Lombard was still able to produce an above-average batting line at Low-A Tampa and was promoted to Hudson Valley in August. Overall, he slashed .231/.338/.334 with a 23% strikeout rate.”

And after the Spring:

"George Lombard Jr. showed up to camp looking much stronger and with a totally different level of power, enough to counter his below-average contact ability if it turns out he’s still whiff-prone like he was last season. There’s a chance the added strength has also made him better able to move the barrel around."

He was not ranked in their top-100 before the season, but shot all the way up to #32 on the Spring performance alone.

Lombard Jr. was a typical first round high school hitter when the Yankees drafted him in 2023: super talented, by raw. His ceiling was as high as could be, but so was the risk.

Now that we’ve seen the breakout come, it’s time to start dreaming about what Lombard’s major league ceiling could be. He does a lot of things well: he’s bigger and stronger than Anthony Volpe with better plate discipline, but is a step behind defensively and on the bases.

He’s probably best suited at second or third base in the majors. I don’t think that he’s an MVP-level offensive talent, but could end up solidly in the All Star range. Think Matt Chapman without the Gold Glove. If he loses a step, think the good version of Alec Bohm.

So what’s next? First, we’ll see how he fares against Double-A pitching. I don’t think that the step up from High-A is as steep as it used to be due to advances in pitching technology, but it’s still a step up. Lombard Jr. was young for High-A, but he’s super duper young for Double-A. We shouldn’t be surprised to see a steep learning curve like we saw with Jasson Dominguez at a similar age.

Second, he’s going to have to start playing another position. Anthony Volpe is the Yankees' shortstop. The organization probably wants him to focus on hitting right now. My guess is that the offseason is the time to start learning a new position, but we could see him start playing 3rd in the second half.

Now that he’s at Double-A, Lombard Jr. could move very quickly. Tippy-top prospects can explode through the minor leagues. I think that the 2026 Opening Day Roster is very much in play if he keeps hitting this well and gets a few weeks at Triple-A to end the 2025 season. I also think that there is a very slim possibility that he becomes a MLB possibility in late 2025, although the Yankees would probably not want to burn a year of his team control unless they were desperate.

Obviously, the usual prospect caveats apply. Even #1 prospects are a big risk (see Holliday, Jackson).

But, it’s time to get excited!