Yankees sum up their selections from the 2023 Draft

NEW YORK -- When the Yankees’ turn arrived in the first round of the 2023 MLB Draft, there was only a brief discussion within the walls of the club’s war room at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., with the group swiftly settling upon high school shortstop George Lombard Jr. as the 26th pick in the nation.

“We had a lot of people on this one who were on board with George,” Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ vice president of amateur domestic scouting, said on Thursday. “There was no dissension at all in terms of picking him, so that worked out pretty good.”

• Yanks pick SS George Lombard Jr. at No. 26

The son of Tigers bench coach George Lombard, the 18-year-old is a right-handed-hitting shortstop from Gulliver Prep in Pinecrest, Fla., who showed off intriguing tools on the summer showcase circuit and took a solid step forward in South Florida this spring.

A commit to Vanderbilt University, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Lombard was also a state champion in soccer at Gulliver Prep. As a senior, he batted .478 with 34 runs, 14 doubles, six homers and 22 RBIs in 29 games. The Miami Herald named him one of the Miami-Dade County Athletes of the Year for 2023.

“There’s a lot of things that intrigue us about him,” Oppenheimer said. “His athleticism; the fact that he was a two-sport guy as an elite soccer player also. The way he plays shortstop, his tools that he has to play shortstop, his power that he has to swing the bat and his contact skills. You top that off with elite makeup, the guy has grit.

“He doesn’t take any pitches off, and then you get Major League bloodlines, having his dad being an ex-Major League player and his mom being an elite [athlete]. Those kinds of things all add up for us to what we think we can get as a special prospect.”

• Draft Central | Draft Tracker

After Lombard Jr., the Yanks’ Draft focused primarily on college players, which Oppenheimer said was “mostly organic.” Those decisions were based partly upon the Yankees’ $5,299,400 bonus pool, the second lowest in the Draft, ahead of only the Phillies' $5,185,500.

New York’s third-round selection was left-hander Kyle Carr, from Palomar (Calif.) College. Carr went 12-1 with a 2.31 ERA in 15 junior college games (14 starts) after spending his first two years at the University of San Diego.

“He’s an athletic left-hander that has also been an outfielder,” Oppenheimer said. “He could do both, but has leaned toward being a pitcher only. He’s a guy who [throws] 92 to 96 [mph] from the left side and throws strikes. He’s got a good, easy slider. The really exciting thing about him is, there’s ... no effort to the way he does it. He just looks like he’s playing catch. There’s a little Tom Glavine look to the way he does it.”

In the fourth round, the Yanks selected second baseman Roc Riggio from Oklahoma State. Riggio, 21, showcased his skills and bravado in college ball, garnering national attention for a couple of memorable home run celebrations -- experiences that figure to prepare him well to someday wear the pinstripes.

“He is a guy that the opposing team and the opposing fans are probably going to dislike, and his own teammates are going to love him because of how hard he plays the game, how intense he is and how much he wants to win,” Oppenheimer said. “It’s just his style, and I don’t think you take away from a guy’s style. He’s a good player, and he can back it up.”

Asked about signability concerns, Oppenheimer said that some of the picks are beginning to travel to Florida for their physicals.

“We’re in a pretty good spot so far with most of our guys right now,” he said. “It’s just a matter of crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s on some of the contracts.”