Brother of Yankees top prospect expected to be top selection in 2026 MLB Draft

A popular draft strategy over the last 10 years or so has been teams selecting the sons/brothers of established major leaguers or top prospects in the sport. Has it worked out every time? No, but it appears a team could capitalize off an apparent New York Yankees success in the 2026 MLB Draft.

The younger brother of Yankees No. 1 prospect George Lombard Jr. has been linked to the Athletics as a potential top pick. Jacob Lombard was just predicted to go No. 8 overall to the Athletics by Bleacher Report's Joel Reuter.

A product of Gulliver Prep (Florida), Lombard's 6-foot-3 frame makes him a more physically imposing athlete than his older brother, according to Reuter, who also described Lombard as having "dynamic raw tools and one of the highest ceilings in the entire class".

Baseball America recently called Lombard "one of the most high-risk, high-reward players in the 2026 draft class" and also described Lombard as having "some of the loudest tools and pure upside potential in the class." He's taken a similar high school path to George (who also attended Gulliver Prep), playing both baseball and soccer and winning multiple state titles in the latter sport.

Yankees top prospect George Lombard Jr.'s brother could be top pick in 2026 MLB Draft

The Lombard family has been all over MLB headlines of late. Yankees fans are most familiar with George Jr., of course, who was recently promoted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and is putting real pressure on the Yankees to make him a Major League player sooner than expected. He is the organization's crown jewel, and with his development crossing paths with the ever-intriguing Anthony Volpe saga/(downfall?), Lombard will continue to be an object of intense interest in Yankees Nation.

Then there's the father of George Jr. and Jacob, George Lombard Sr., who is currently working as a bench coach for the Tigers and recently managed a game for Detroit while AJ Hinch served a brief suspension for his involvement in the Framber Valdez debacle (people are still trying to figure out why Hinch was suspended for Valdez throwing at Trevor Story, but that's another topic of discussion). George Sr. was a second-round pick of the Atlanta Braves in the 1994 MLB Draft. He played in the big leagues for six years as a member of the Braves, Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays (then Devil Rays), and Washington Nationals. Lombard won a World Series in 2020 as the first base coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It's obvious that athletic genes are strong in the Lombard family. While George Jr. went off the board to the Yanks at No. 26 overall in 2023 MLB, it now looks like Jacob has a real chance to go higher, if Reuter's projection holds weight. Notably, MLB.com's scouting report of Jacob also mentioned that he's expected to go higher than George Jr. did in the draft.

That same scouting report also featured an interesting tidbit about Jacob's "main weakness", revealing that he's a people-pleaser who listens to too much advice! You don't see that on a scouting report every day. Any advice there from big bro, perhaps?

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