Miami Marlins pick Gulliver Prep’s Jacob Lombard with No. 14 pick in MLB draft
The Lombards have another first-round pick in the family.
And he's staying close to home.
Gulliver Prep shortstop Jacob Lombard, the son of George Lombard Sr. and younger brother of top New York Yankees prospect George Lombard Jr., was selected No. 14 overall by the Miami Marlins in the 2026 MLB Draft on Saturday. The selection comes with a signing bonus slot value of $5,444,900. Miami’s total bonus pool for its 11 selections through the first 10 rounds is $11,960,100, although teams can technically spend up to 5% above their bonus pool without penalty to make the Marlins’ cap $12,558,105.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Lombard said on MLB Network shortly after being selected. “It’s pretty surreal. To have the family and the support and all of it was something I couldn’t even dream of.”
He follows in the footsteps of his brother George Jr., who the Yankees picked No. 26 overall in the 2023 draft. Both bested dad, who was a second-round selection in 1994 and played six seasons in MLB before transitioning to coaching (he’s in his sixth year as the Detroit Tigers’ bench coach and spent five years as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first base coach before that).
“We’re both just as happy for each other to finally get closer towards you know our dream, which is possibly playing with or against each other in big leagues,” Jacob Lombard said of his brother. “I think it’s just another step closer to that. It’s going to be competitive, but I don’t think we’re both thinking about that right now. We’re just we’re trying to be big leaguers.”
Many in the baseball world believe Jacob Lombard could end up being the best of the three, and that’s tantalizing for the Marlins considering he fell all the way to No. 14 considering Lombard was viewed as a near-consensus top 10 prospect in the draft class (No. 5 by MLB Pipeline and Baseball America, No. 6 by ESPN and No. 9 by Fangraphs, but No. 20 by The Athletic).
“We’re thrilled,” Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix said. “We didn’t expect that we’d be able to get a player like Jacob Lombard at the pick that we had here.”
Bendix credited Marlins vice president of amateur forecasting and player evaluation initiatives Frankie Piliere and the club’s entire amateur staff for being “really thorough in our coverage of a player that, frankly, we didn’t think was going to be available to us.”
“That could have been an excuse to not do the work that was required to get comfortable to understand who this player is,” Bendix said, “but we did a ton of work on him. Feel like we know his strengths, his weaknesses. He’s an incredible human. Comes from an incredible family, obviously a local kid, and somebody that we couldn’t be more excited to bring into the organization.”
Lombard made a name for himself on the showcase circuits and has a well-rounded profile. He has the power and speed combination that could make him a threat to become a 30-homer, 30-stolen base player. He’s solid defensively at shortstop. At Gulliver, he was the Miami Herald’s Dade 4A-1A Baseball Player of the Year this season after hitting .477 with nine home runs, 25 RBI and 52 runs scored for Gulliver as a senior.
“He has some of the best pure tools in the draft class, college or high school,” The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote.
“Lombard boasts one of the loudest packages of tools and athleticism in the 2026 class, and he comes from a baseball family that shows up in the fundamentally sound nature of his game,” reads his Baseball America Scouting report.
Piliere agreed with those sentiments.
“He makes plays that may kind of make you turn your head, even just down to the reaction times,” Piliere said. “I think of some of our scouts coming back and saying high school players don’t react to shortstop the way Jacob Lombard does. ... He’s a very good athlete, very special athlete. And I think every time you can watch him, you’re seeing things are unexpected that high school players don’t do, amateur players don’t do. I think that’s the appeal.”
But there were concerns with his elevated swing-and-miss rate during his most recent round of summer circuits.
“He has the swing, strength, speed and athleticism to be a superstar,” Law wrote, “but can he hit enough to even be a regular?”
That’s a question Lombard will look to answer over time.
For now, he’s gotten through the first part in getting drafted.
It’s up to him from here to live up to the hype.
More Marlins picks
Miami closed Saturday with four more picks in addition to Lombard: Oregon State left-handed pitcher Ethan Kleinschmit (Round 2, No. 52), Sam Houston State right-handed pitcher Ryan Peterson (Competitive Balance B, No. 71), Arkansas shortstop Cam Kozeal (Round 3, No. 87) and Brunswick (Georgia) Glynn Academy High outfielder Wessley Roberson (Round 4, No. 115).
The final day of the 2026 MLB Draft is Sunday, consisting of Rounds 5-20.
This story was originally published July 11, 2026 at 2:49 PM.
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