It was a pretty quiet week at Yankees spring training, especially with half the roster off playing in the World Baseball Classic. But here’s a few thoughts I had today that I wanted to share. Lets get to it.

I’m seeing a lot of buzz about George Lombard Jr., the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect, being in line to make the team out of spring training and start at shortstop while Anthony Volpe spends at least the first month on the sidelines getting his shoulder ready for game action.

Can we please tap the brakes here? The last thing the Yankees should be doing is making the same mistake they did with Volpe in 2023, rushing him to the big leagues when he probably could have used a little more seasoning at Triple-A.

The 20-year-old Lombard has had a nice couple weeks down in Florida, grabbing playing time and at bats with Volpe out, Oswaldo Cabrera just now getting into games for the first since his broken ankle last May, and Jose Caballaro playing for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic.

The slick fielding 2023 No. 1 draft pick seems to make a dazzling play with his glove every day, and across 27 plate appearances (through Sunday), he has a .407 on-base and a .931 OPS thanks to a double, triple, and home run among his five hits. Let’s also remember, though, that while his home run came off Red Sox Garrett Crochet, the majority of pitchers he has faced are probably headed back to the minor leagues.

Lombard is not ready to be the full-time shortstop for the Yankees, there’s no reason to speed up the timetable, and I think the Yankees know this. He doesn’t have a single at-bat at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, and when he was promoted to Double-A Somerset last year and played 108 games, he struggled at the plate, slashing .215/.337/.358 with a .695 OPS and struck out 26.4% of the time which is disappointing for a player with his talent at that level.

“I think it was very beneficial getting through that for the first time and knowing different ways to manage that and different ways to deal with that,” Lombard told reporters about the difficulty he had moving from Single-A to Double-A. “I think I learned a lot about myself for sure, and there were a lot of things that I will take away from that struggle and from that period of time where things weren’t going my way that I’ll be able to kind of use that knowledge or use that information in the future later when it will happen.”

I can easily see a world where Lombard becomes the Yankees’ full-time shortstop in 2027, unless Volpe suddenly becomes far more reliable as a hitter when he gets back to action. If that happens and they don’t move on from Volpe, maybe he moves to second base next season, or even third, with Lombard taking over at short. Jazz Chisholm is a free agent after 2026 and may not be re-signed, and Ryan McMahon is a free agent after 2027.

“He’s been great,” Aaron Boone told reporters last week when asked about Lombard. “You see what he’s capable of. The thing he does pretty well already, as a young hitter, is control the strike zone and has real pop. He’s swung the bat really well, but also played his normal phenomenal defense wherever he’s at. He has an exciting future, with that versatility and defense, not just at shortstop. But he can really play shortstop.”

After such a nice first spring start with the Yankees, Weathers got lit up by the Mets on Sunday, allowing six runs (five earned) on seven hits and two walks in just two innings and 59 pitches of work. And that happened after a 1-2-3 first inning! Ugly.

“What I didn’t do well, because it’s been so long since I’ve been in that game-type atmosphere where there’s traffic, is I’ve got to do a better job of slowing down and not trying to do too much,” Weathers said of his outing where he topped out at 99 mph on his fastball.

Weathers is a key man for the Yankees as they try to navigate the first month or so without Carlos Rodon, and at least the first two months without Gerrit Cole. Obviously, it’s way too early to be worried about Weathers after just two outings, but he has to lock down one of the rotation spots. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road as he works on whatever it is he’s working on.

“He has immense talent,’’ pitching coach Matt Blake said Sunday to the New York Post. “The biggest thing is supporting him to keep his routine together to help keep him on the field.”

Speaking of the rotation, another key guy for the Yankees is Warren, and he has been very good across three spring starts. He has thrown 10.1 innings and has a 0.87 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP while averaging a strikeout per inning.

On Saturday against the Nationals, Warren went four innings and gave up an unearned run thanks to a Lombard error on two hits and two walks, and 37 of his 50 pitches went for strikes.

“I think he’s been steady,” Boone said. “He’s taken his share of lumps along the way. But I feel he’s learned a ton, he’s grown a ton, learned how to slow the game down while also still just physically developing his craft. He’s had a really good camp.”

Warren flew under the radar last season which is not surprising when you have Rodon and Max Fried in the rotation, and then you call up dynamic Cam Schlittler late in the season. But Warren was a bit of an unsung hero as he gave the Yankees an excellent 2025 season.

He took the ball every fifth day, 33 starts in all which tied Rodon for the most in MLB, and pitched to a respectable 4.44 ERA which was better than it looked. That’s because he had three stinkers where he gave up a combined 21 earned runs in starts against the Blue Jays, Dodgers and Red Sox. He also had 23 starts where he allowed three or less earned runs, and after the way he struggled when he first got called up in 2024 and left me and probably you wondering if he’d ever be any use to the Yankees, he was one of the most surprising members of the 2025 team.

When the team heads to San Francisco to open the season on March 25, Warren will be a fixture in the rotation, presumably along with Weathers, Fried, Schlittler and Luis Gil, and not only will be a fixture, he’s going to be someone Boone will be counting heavily on to be as steady as he was last year.

Schlittler was great when he came up last year, but now we’ll see where he goes in what will officially be his rookie season. Teams have now seen him and he’ll need to make adjustments to stay ahead of the hitters. Gil is a wildcard, literally, because his command issues are still a problem. And Weathers remains an unknown, mostly because while his stuff is tremendous, he’s been a perpetual injured list player.