The baseball season may only be in the early stages of May, however as grueling as MLB’s 162 game schedule can be at times, it always seems to go by quicker than you’d think. Soon enough the summer months will be upon us and one of baseball’s pinnacle events will arrive with the MLB Draft. This season after getting some some luck in the draft lottery the Kansas City Royals will pick sixth overall in just two months time on July 11.
There’s a ton of opportunity for the Royals to continue to bolster their youthful farm system, after receiving two picks within the opening round last season and now having a top six pick this time around. In FanSided’s latest MLB Mock Draft, they have the Royals looking especially to the future by selecting high school shortstop Jacob Lombard.
In an era of prospects, and in baseball in general these days, where tools are king, FanSided’s Zachary Rotman outlined just how the Florida prep star is no one-trick pony, with so much to build off of at such a young age.
“Jacob Lombard has some of the most upside in this year’s class thanks to his ridiculous power and speed potential,” Rotman wrote. “Lombard is given a 60 grade for his power and a 65 grade for his speed, all while playing the premium position of shortstop — a spot where he certainly looks like a long-term fit.”
While power and speed might be his most notable prospect tools, there’s more to Lombard’s game than that. In MLB Pipeline’s scouting evaluation of him, they also give him a 55 grades in both his hitting and fielding with an arm that at least appears to present average with a 50 grade. They describe him as having “the acumen to be a plus hitter in the future” and that “will be able to play shortstop for a very long time”.
And if you think you recognize the last name, it’s because you probably do, as Lombard comes from strong baseball roots. His father, George Lombard, played parts of six seasons in the majors as an outfielder between 1998 and 2006 with the Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Nationals before shifting gears to coaching in 2016. After years coaching in the minors, Lombard got his MLB break with Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016 as their first base coach, winning a World Series with them in 2020. He’d then head to the Royals’ AL Central rivals in Detroit in 2021 as their bench coach and resides there in that role today.
Many may be familiar with Jacob Lombard though because of his older brother George Lombard Jr., a fellow shortstop who’s been rising through the prospect ranks and currently ranks as the 55th overall prospect in MLB and number two in the Yankees’ system, according to FanSided’s latest rankings.
A position change seems likely for Jacob Lombard if he reaches MLB with Royals
While mock drafts are purely speculative, they offer plenty of insight into what teams might be thinking and how they might be posturing, even if the pick ends up being someone else. In the Royals case, picking someone like Lombard would start a trend of back-to-back years selecting high school position players in the opening round.
The problem is though, while someone like Lombard will likely take quite a bit of time to develop professionally, the Royals already have their franchise shortstop in Bobby Witt Jr. on a long-term contract. Sure there are opt-outs every season between 2031-2034, however with Kansas City hopefully entering their peak competitive era, the hope will obviously be that they can entice Witt to remain a Royal for life.
With a perennial MVP candidate in Witt occupying short, this means someone like Lombard will all but likely have to lean upon his plus fielding ability and relocate elsewhere, whether that be somewhere else in the infield or a creative new position change entirely much like they did with Jac Caglianone.
Teams should never draft for major league need, so Witt’s presence by no means should deter the Royals from selecting the upside of someone like Lombard or other high-ranked prep shortstops like Grady Emerson. However, with a position as clogged up top as shortstop is for Kansas City, it’s something that also shouldn’t be ignored.
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