Yankees' George Lombard Jr.'s breakout season is missing just one surprising thing

Yankees runaway No. 1 prospect George Lombard Jr. has won fans throughout the organization in 2025, with every star who stops in Somerset on rehab somehow coming away more impressed with his maturity. Some see a future cornerstone at third base. Others see the second coming of Carlos Correa. But one thing nobody's seen much since spring training? Lombard Jr.'s power.

We know it's in there. We saw him lift and separate on an inside fastball, drilling the Planet Fitness porch at George M. Steinbrenner Field with a wise-beyond-his years liner in camp. But Lombard Jr.'s two home runs at big-league camp are still double his current total across High-A and Double-A, where he's smashed just a single regular-season home run through 54 games (after notching just five last year in a full season).

Lombard Jr.'s offense in general has been slow to materialize at Double-A, but his emergence with the bat still seems like only a matter of time. He's been generationally patient, showing poise in OBP'ing .349 with a .204 average. It took him a while to make an adjustment to High-A, too, with nothing fruitful coming from a September 2024 cameo until he rose back to the level this spring.

It hasn't been a barrel problem — just ask Jazz Chisholm! Still, though, it's admittedly odd that Lombard's raw power and talent hasn't translated yet in game action at any level.

Yankees top prospect George Lombard Jr. has it all - except home run power in-game, right now

The calls from both inside and outside the house for Lombard Jr. to get MLB reps next season are only going to grow louder throughout the second half. He might look ready — in fact, his biggest advantage is his look, right down to the No. 2 on his back. Things might even get sketchy enough at third base for the big club that the outcry begins sooner than we'd want it to (Chisholm is a brilliant second baseman still learning third on the fly and everybody knows it).

But there's one big disconnect between Lombard Jr.'s on-paper grades and his performance, and he'll have to solve that before he's given the keys to the hot corner in the Bronx.