{"id":772414,"date":"2026-08-07T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/772414\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T13:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:00:31","slug":"yankees-dont-need-george-lombard-jr-to-be-a-star-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/772414\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees don&#8217;t need George Lombard Jr. to be a star yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were always going to be expectations. That\u2019s the cost of being a prospect \u2014 of being a piece of the future \u2014 for a New York City baseball team.<\/p>\n<p>For better or for worse, George Lombard Jr. <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/04\/sports\/george-lombard-jr-prepared-for-the-yankees-challenge-now-facing-him\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has worn the label of being the next franchise shortstop<\/a>, the next Derek Jeter. For better or for worse, Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, Zac Thornton, Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing have all been crowned as the next generation of a Mets team insisting it plans on competing in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>But there are subtle differences between these forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>Lombard isn\u2019t tasked with becoming the face of the scuffling Yankees (64-51) or even one of their 10 most important pieces. He\u2019s just the missing piece, someone <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/08\/06\/sports\/aaron-judges-help-could-prove-too-late-to-help-punchless-yankees\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">they hope can spark an October run<\/a> and develop into a constant at a position that has dealt with as much uncertainty as left field did until Cody Bellinger arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were always going to be expectations. That\u2019s the cost of being a prospect \u2014 of being a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[3883,5,1273,5805,2107,4,1690,61,62,2548,2547,2517,1274,185,428,142],"class_list":["post-772414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-yankees","tag-a-j-ewing","tag-baseball","tag-beyond-the-back-page","tag-carson-benge","tag-george-lombard-jr","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkyankees","tag-nolan-mclean","tag-post-sports-newsletters","tag-sports","tag-sports-plus","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117054355778567549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772414","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=772414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}