There\u2019s nothing like the early days of spring to get the imagination going. Pitchers show up with new pitches, hitters show up with improved swings and approaches, everyone is in the best shape of their lives, and hope springs, well, eternal.<\/p>\n
Among those bright spring training traditions is letting one\u2019s optimism run wild when it comes to prospects. Prospects are unproven, untested, but that they\u2019re untested means we haven\u2019t yet seen them fail, making it that much easier to dream. George Lombard Jr., the Yankees\u2019 consensus top prospect, certainly gave us a reason to dream yesterday:<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a 20-year-old shortstop, facing perhaps the second- or third-best pitcher on the planet, taking a 97-mph fastball in a 1-2 count way out to left field. Lord knows we can\u2019t jump to conclusions based on spring training, much less one swing in spring training, but if there was ever a swing to get excited about, it\u2019s that one.<\/p>\n
We won\u2019t know what Lombard will ultimately become for many years, but after seeing him do that against Garrett Crochet, it\u2019s not hard to ask: will he play a major role for the Yankees this year? The smart money probably says no. He\u2019s still only 20, and he\u2019s coming off a minor-league season that was fine more than anything, posting a .748 OPS across two levels, albeit while flashing big tools and playing largely against players much older than him. The Yankees also have Jos\u00e9 Caballero, Ryan McMahon, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. lined up to start on the infield dirt, with Anthony Volpe likely to reclaim a starting job once he\u2019s healthy.<\/p>\n
Yet is it crazy to wonder if there\u2019s any way Lombard could force himself into the conversation? Caballero and McMahon both project as average-ish players. If one of them played slightly below that standard, and Lombard was tearing up the high minors in the first half of the season, could he enter the picture? And then there\u2019s the matter of Volpe, who was basically the worst regular starter in baseball for a good chunk of 2025. Better health could and should help him regress in a positive manner this year, but we\u2019ve all grown weary of Volpe struggling for infuriatingly long periods. If he does it again, will the Yankees resist in challenging their top prospect, much as they did with Volpe himself three years ago?<\/p>\n
Most 20-year-old prospects don\u2019t end up playing a prominent roles for their big-league clubs. But we\u2019re at spring training, and it\u2019s time to dream big. Do you think Lombard will make an impact as soon as this year?<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll be another loaded day on the site today, starting off with Kevin\u2019s recap of the official opener of the WBC, which took place late last night between Chinese Taipei and Australia. Josh will also finish off our preview coverage of the WBC with an overview of Pool D, while Jeff will continue our general 2026 MLB Preview with a look at the St. Louis Cardinals. Also, Michael brings us our latest player preview by analyzing Giancarlo Stanton, and Peter profiles Doug Bird as part of our Yankee Birthday series.<\/p>\n
New York Yankees vs. Minnesota Twins<\/p>\n
Video: YES, Gotham Sports App, Twins.tv<\/p>\n
Venue: George M. Steinbrenner Field, Tampa, FL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s nothing like the early days of spring to get the imagination going. Pitchers show up with new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,4,1690,62,2548,2547,7660,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-607588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkyankees","14":"tag-pinstripe-alley-discussions","15":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116176277094306011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}