New York Yankees fans might already be ready to move on from Anthony Volpe at shortstop.
It’s a glamour position for this famed franchise, of course, and it hasn’t been filled in a particularly impressive way since Derek Jeter’s retirement.
Maybe the next possibility at the spot isn’t too far away.
George Lombard Jr. is a shortstop prospect in the Yankees’ organization, and according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel, he’s also the best prospect the Yanks have.
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McDaniel ranks Lombard as the No. 20 overall prospect in all of baseball on his new top-100 list unveiled on Tuesday.
Lombard, 20 years old, wouldn’t be ready to play in the majors quite yet. But if he keeps trending in the right direction, he could be the Yankees’ shortstop of the future.
“Lombard was the No. 26 pick in the 2023 draft out of a south Florida high school, coming from a baseball family: his father George Lombard Sr. was a six-year MLB veteran who is now the bench coach for the Tigers and his brother Jacob is a likely first-rounder in the 2026 draft from the same high school,” McDaniel writes. “Lombard’s feel for the game is evident especially on the bases and on defense, and he has good tools but excellent outcomes, with above-average defense at shortstop. He stole 35 bases last season.”
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McDaniel compares him to Willy Adames, the former Brewers star who now plays for the Giants, in that he has more power than pure hit tool.
“At the plate, Lombard projects for above-average-to-plus raw power and has a swing geared to get to it in games, even if he hasn’t posted big homer totals yet,” McDaniel writes. “That’s not unusual for minor league shortstops: Lombard hit nine homers last year, but Adames never hit more than 11 homers in a season in the minors but has eclipsed 20 homers six times and 30 homers three times in the big leagues. His issue, similar to Adames’, is that this limits his contact ceiling, projecting as a 45-grade hitter which is roughly a .240 average.”
McDaniel does note that Lombard is a bit up against the line, because if his hit tool performs even worse than that, he gets a lot harder to play.
But if Lombard puts the pieces together, he could be the player the Yankees turn to down the road if they choose to move on from Volpe.
