NEW YORK — The scouting reports on the two best shortstops in the Lombard family disagree on almost nothing. Same build. Same hometown. Same trouble with velocity up in the zone. Same father.
Only one of them is Yankees property.
That is the arithmetic behind a family that has now sent three of its members into professional baseball, and it is why the Yankees’ top prospect spent one night this month watching a draft board with an interest no teammate could match.
For a franchise that has spent two years telling its fans to be patient with a shortstop, the Lombard name has become both the promise and the reminder. The promise is in Scranton. The reminder is 1,200 miles south.
The father who made 144 games last a career
The tree starts with George Lombard Sr., who played for the Atlanta Braves, the Detroit Tigers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Washington Nationals. He was never a star. He was the kind of player who survives on instruction, and that is what he became once the playing stopped.
Lombard Sr. is now the bench coach for the Tigers, which is how a family with modest big league production ended up with an immodest baseball education. His sons did not learn the game from a highlight reel. They learned it from a man whose job is teaching it to major leaguers.
What the Yankees actually have in Scranton
George Lombard Jr. was the Yankees’ first-round pick in 2023, taken 26th overall out of Gulliver Preparatory School in Pinecrest, Florida, and he signed as an overslot selection. That is the same high school his brother just left. He was born in Miami on June 2, 2005, which makes him 21. He is the top prospect in the Yankees system.
Across 62 games this season he is slashing .258/.387/.446 with a .833 OPS, eight home runs, 20 doubles and 25 RBIs, according to Baseball Reference. The composite line undersells what actually happened. Split it in half and the season becomes two different players.
At Double-A Somerset, Lombard Jr. hit .312/.400/.571 with a .971 OPS and four home runs in 20 games. The Yankees promoted him in late April. At Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, across 42 games, he is hitting .231/.381/.385 with a .765 OPS and four more home runs.
The batting average fell 81 points after the jump. The slugging fell 186. The on-base percentage fell 19.
That gap is the whole scouting report. Lombard Jr. has drawn 35 walks in 197 Triple-A plate appearances against 42 strikeouts, which means the contact stopped traveling but the strike-zone judgment never wavered. Hitters who lose the barrel usually start chasing. He did not.
He is also 5.1 years younger than the average International League player, per Baseball Reference. A 21-year-old reaching base at a .381 clip against that competition is not slumping. He is paying a tax.
He is listed at 6-2 and 190 pounds and is carried as a shortstop, second baseman and third baseman. He entered the season ranked 27th on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects. The lingering question is the fastball, which has given him trouble in the past.
The brother who went 14th, and the sentence that stung
Jacob Lombard, a shortstop out of Gulliver Prep in the greater Miami area, was selected 14th overall by the Miami Marlins on July 11. He stayed home. He was committed to the University of Miami, and the selection puts him on track to become the third Lombard to bypass college for pro ball.
The evaluation on him is not a courtesy extended to a famous last name. Before the draft he was regarded as one of the top five prospects in the class and the second-best prep hitter available, a higher valuation than either previously drafted Lombard carried. He is already the same size as his older brother, with more expected power. Scouts flagged his arm. Nobody flagged his bat.
The bluntest assessment of the family hierarchy came from a national writer covering the draft, and it was not about the Yankees prospect.
“Jacob Lombard might be the best ballplayer in the family,” Brian Murphy of MLB.com wrote.
Jacob has been asked repeatedly about sharing a field with his brother, a question that carries real weight now that the two are in different organizations. His answer, given before the draft, fixed on one specific image.
“I’m thinking so far ahead in terms of a possibility of playing with my brother, hitting a home run and rounding second and smiling at him while he’s at shortstop,” Jacob Lombard said. “That is something I smile about going to bed every single night.”
After Miami called his name, he framed the reunion as a matter of when, not if.
“Recently, it hit me that my brother and I have an opportunity to play on the same field at a high level,” Jacob Lombard said. “Whether it’s big leagues, minor leagues, if you ask me, it’s going to be the big leagues at one point or another. Eventually, we’ll be on the same field. Maybe playing together, maybe playing against each other.”
Why the Bronx has a stake in a Marlins pick
The Lombards have already done this once. In spring training action in 2024, Lombard Sr. was in the Tigers dugout while his son stood in a Yankees uniform on the other side. Now there are three of them in the sport at once, in three different organizations.
The Yankees’ immediate stake is more practical. They are 54-42, second in the AL East behind Tampa Bay at 56-38. Anthony Volpe’s production has frustrated the fan base for two seasons. The organization’s answer at shortstop is the same name that just watched his brother go 14 picks higher than he did.
There is a second stake, and it is the one nobody in the organization will say out loud. Lombard Jr. is the best trade chip the Yankees have. His name has surfaced in speculation around the Aug. 3 deadline for exactly the reason he is valuable: a 21-year-old Triple-A shortstop getting on base at a .381 clip with Top 100 pedigree is the currency contenders spend.
The Yankees have not indicated they intend to move him, and nothing has been reported about an offer involving him.
Miami has its shortstop of the future. Detroit has the father. The Yankees have the eldest son, a Triple-A address, a 7-day IL stint, 18 days until the deadline and a decision they have not yet had to make.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
