NEW YORK — Yankees top prospect George Lombard Jr. woke up Sunday with the best numbers of any minor-league position player in the entire organization to begin this season. The shortstop is hitting .329 so far this year over 24 games with High-A Hudson Valley. He either leads the system or is tied to the top spot in OPS (.983), wRC+ (184), walks (23), runs (22), stolen bases (11) and doubles (8). On Monday, Lombard will wake up as a member of a new Yankees affiliate. He was promoted to Double-A Somerset on Sunday evening, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Lombard, 19, is the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect by MLB Pipeline, holding a spot in their top-100 list. He’s ranked second in the Yankees’ system by Baseball America, but he’s behind Jasson Domínguez who has graduated from prospect status as one of the Yankees main outfielders. A product of Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami, Lombard was selected in the first round of the 2023 draft by the Yankees. His dad, George Lombard Sr., played parts of six MLB seasons and he’s been working as on big-league coaching staffs — like the Red Sox, Dodgers and now Tigers — ever since. Growing up in MLB clubhouses with his dad helped Lombard establish an advanced makeup that many in the Yankees organization consider his sixth tool. This spring, Lombard continued to impress, flashing his immense potential during his first major-league camp. He returned to High-A to begin the year — that’s where Lombard finished out his first full professional season in 2024 after 81 games to begin the year with Class-A Tampa. Now, Lombard will be on the same team as outfielder and fellow first-rounder Spencer Jones, another top-ranked prospect in the Yankees’ system. As much as Lombard is defying typical prospect trends by making it to Double-A before his 20th birthday, patience is required with a player at his age. Just this weekend, Yankees director of hitting Jarret DeHart prefaced that reps are incredibly important for someone like Lombard, who has been adjusting and adapting to playing baseball full-time over these last few seasons after he playing soccer at a high level in high school. In that sense, don’t expect Lombard to rocket through the system and make his MLB debut by the end of this year even if the Yankees are still searching for an answer at third base. That said, with more success this summer, Lombard can put himself in prime position to get a taste of Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre by the end of this year. That would line him up to be a contender for a big-league roster spot next spring. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription. Max Goodman may be reached at mgoodman@njadvancemedia.com.