George Lombard Jr. has barely gotten his feet under him in the majors, but the Yankees’ shortstop conversation is already getting loud - and messy.
The 21-year-old has brought energy with the bat and looked sharp in the field right away, which has only pushed expectations higher. But his recent defensive stumble has also given some fans a reason to overreact, especially when they start stacking him up against Anthony Volpe. That comparison, at least on the numbers alone, doesn’t hold up the way some want it to.
Lombard Jr. has made four errors in 17 games. Volpe had four errors in 56 games.
Those numbers have been tossed around as if they tell the whole story, but they don’t. Volpe finished last season with 13 errors, the third most among qualified shortstops, and the broader point is that errors by themselves are a flimsy way to judge defense.
The bigger picture matters here, too. Volpe was entering Year 4 in MLB when the 2026 season opened.
Lombard Jr. has been around for two weeks. That difference in experience is massive, and it’s why the noise around Lombard’s rough patch feels so premature.
The early defensive burst from Lombard Jr. was real. He racked up eight defensive runs saved in just 11 games, a start so hot that regression was always going to show up somewhere. A few bobbles and miscues were never out of the question.
There’s also a physical contrast between the two that shows up in the field. Lombard Jr. is listed at six-foot-two and 190 pounds, while Volpe is five-foot-10 and 197 pounds. That extra length can matter when it comes to reaching balls in the hole, and it also connects to the differences in arm strength.
So far, Lombard Jr.’s average arm strength has been 85.5 miles per hour. Volpe has been in the 81.5 miles per hour range for his career, and this season he’s posted an average arm strength of 79 miles per hour. Those numbers affect more than just throws to first; they shape how cleanly a shortstop can operate on the move and how quickly he can get rid of the ball.
Volpe’s defensive issues last season were tied to timing, and that timing problem spilled into his footwork, his fluidity, his handling of short hops, his charging of grounders and some of the errant throws that followed. Lombard Jr. is going to have his own mistakes, because he’s still new to the league. But that doesn’t change the larger point: he’s just getting started, while Volpe already has more than three years of big-league experience behind him.
The Yankees still have a lot to learn about what Lombard Jr. will become. But based on what’s been shown so far, the defensive upside looks real - and the rush to use his early errors as a referendum on his future is way too soon.
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