The Yankees are ready to promote their next hopeful shortstop of the future.
The team will call up top prospect George Lombard Jr. in time for Tuesday’s game against the Cardinals, a source confirmed to the Daily News. The decision, made Monday hours after an underwhelming trade deadline passed the Yankees by, comes with the club unable to get consistent production out of José Caballero and Anthony Volpe. It will also make the 21-year-old Lombard the fifth-youngest Yankee to make his MLB debut.
The YES Network’s Jack Curry first reported Lombard’s promotion, which will make him the Yankees’ starting shortstop moving forward. Meanwhile, Volpe was optioned after Monday’s 13-7 loss to St. Louis, as were Jasson Domínguez and Angel Chivilli.
Earlier in the day, Brian Cashman suggested that Lombard was off limits in recent trade discussions with the Tigers surrounding Tarik Skubal. The general manager said he talked to Detroit “several times” about the back-to-back AL Cy Young, who ultimately went to the Dodgers, but he couldn’t get them to come off a “high price” that “might work.”
“It was a very specific ask and a certain player that we were weren’t willing to play with in that arena on Tarik Skubal,” Cashman said. “Despite how great a pitcher he is, it’s another two months to go plus the postseason, and that made it more difficult for us to be comfortable giving up the ask that was going to go their way.”
The son of a former outfielder and the Tigers’ current bench coach, Lombard is considered the 20th-best prospect in baseball by MLB.com. He began the season at Double-A before earning an aggressive late-April promotion to Triple-A, where he’s hit .268 with six home runs and an .845 OPS in 56 games.
Lombard recently came off the injured list after spraining a couple of fingers, but he’s looked fine since.
“I think he’s had an outstanding year,” Aaron Boone said over the weekend in Chicago. “I think he’s gotten better. I think he continues to show a ton of promise. Obviously, we love the kid and the makeup.
“Any of your minor league players or prospects, you want to see them develop and get better. And George’s case is obviously a high-profile one. That’s continued to happen, and that’s a testament to his work ethic and just his talent. So he’s done a really good job, and we’ll see where it leads.”
A first-round pick in 2023, Lombard is already thought of as the best defensive shortstop in the Yankees’ organization, though Caballero, in terms of DRS, and Volpe, according to OAA, have graded out well there this season. But the Yankees have always valued Caballero’s ability to play all over the field. Meanwhile, Volpe, once the Yankees’ top prospect himself, has been relegated to a reserve role in recent weeks after serving as the team’s nearly unquestioned starting shortstop from the start of the 2023 season through the end of the 2025 campaign.
“The one thing that’s always stood out for me is the ease with which he plays defense and how good he is at it,” Boone recently said of Lombard, who can also play second and third.
Now Lombard will restart the Yankees’ efforts to cement a homegrown talent at short after Volpe failed to seize the opportunity.
By putting Lombard in the majors now, the Yankees are giving the right-handed hitter some time to acclimate to major league competition before the stretch run and postseason. Lombard typically required an adjustment period offensively when promoted to a new level in the minors, so calling him up now gives him a buffer period.
It always made sense for his first big league promotion to come some time after the trade deadline, though Cashman didn’t forecast a call-up when he Zoomed with reporters prior to Monday’s game. He simply said “it’s business as usual” when asked if he anticipated the farmhand getting a shot soon, and he acknowledged that the Yankees explored a limited trade market for shortstops.
Ultimately, Cashman came to the conclusion that his best option was already in his organization.
“We like the players we have,” he said, “and we like the players we have on the come.”
