The Prospect Notebook: 4/28-5/3

Aaron Lichstrahl
May 5
8 min read

Allen Facundo

Line: 4 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 4.50 ERA, 3.35 FIP

A popular candidate to receive a promotion to High-A Hudson Valley to begin the season, Allen Facundo was surprisingly kept in Low-A to start the year. After showing he could still breeze through the level, Facundo was granted a promotion to High-A, where he made his first start for the Renegades on Thursday. It was an exciting outing for the 23-year-old left hander, but one that highlighted the known concerns.

Let’s start with the mechanics, as I believe it will answer questions about his command as we discuss his pitches next. Facundo is yet another Yankee pitcher who starts from the stretch. Facundo’s delivery has a lot of moving parts. Upon lifting his leg, he stretches his arm far back towards second base before bringing it back up, where he releases from a wide arm angle. On top of this, the use of his legs can be a little inconsistent. This leads to inconsistent release and control issues, which has been the main concern in Facundo’s career.

Facundo threw three pitches: Four-seam fastball, slider, and changeup. His four-seamer started out hot, averaging between 95-97 in the first inning. This seemed to be due to the excitement, as he was sitting 92-94 over the next three innings. The fastball clearly has the potential to generate whiffs, but his command of the pitch, especially in the upper parts of the zone, was spotty. Additionally, the fastball is very susceptible to damage when contact is made. The one hit he gave up was off a low and in 93mph fastball, which was lucky to not leave the park.

His slider is an 84-86 hard breaking pitch, which he likes to bury down and in to righties and down and away to lefties. While he did try to backdoor a few throughout the outing, they were clearly less effective than his usual placement to the right corner or the plate. While there were a few spiked sliders, I thought this was his best pitch, both stuff and command wise. He was able to get swing and misses from both righties and lefties on it. The changeup is the least used pitch, flashing 88-90 and only used against righties. He only threw this pitch to the left edge of the plate, but the control was not good, with only a couple called strikes or swing and misses on it. It is still a good weapon to have and did flash some potential that it could be relied upon more.

Overall, Facundo showed the same stuff he had in Tampa. The four walks are a culprit of smarter hitters. Still, with 7 strikeouts on 18 hitters, he was missing plenty of bats just the same. The fastball is the item to watch here in Hudson Valley. He either needs to tighten his control of the pitch or keep that extra velocity longer into starts if he wants to remain a starter long-term. If not, I saw what could make for a very intriguing reliever.

Jack Cebert

Line: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 3.38 ERA, 4.60 FIP

After covering him in the first notebook of the season, I return to covering Cebert upon his well-deserved promotion to AA Somerset. The 24-year-old powered through Hudson Valley thanks to his excellent tunneling and superb stuff, but how would the challenge of Double-A? Overall, it was just as impressive, buts lets discuss more.

Cebert’s best attribute may be the consistency with his mechanics. Pitching from the stretch, Cebert has a quick little ball tap into the glove before delivering the ball to the plate. He comes around well and can find a very consistent release point. This allows him to tunnel his fastball variations very well. Cebert blends his four-seam, sinker, and cutter magnificently. Not only did this lead to some weak swings, but even some ugly strikes looking. In one instance, lefty Tlyer Mcdonough seemed to be expecting the sinker with two strikes. Instead of the ball breaking off the plate for a ball, the four-seamer stayed right on the outside edge of the strike zone. This led to a puzzled McDonough walking back to the dugout in confusion.

While his tunneling and pitch mixing helps his stuff play up, the stuff itself still looked good. His sinker was sitting 91-93 with very nice late arm-side ride. It is clearly his best pitch, able to saw off many hands of right-handers, such as he did to Brooks Bannon in the second inning on a groundout. His four-seamer sits 92-94 and mainly featured vs lefties. His cutter lacks the velocity of his other two fastballs, sitting at 87, but some very nice late glove-side movement. While still a good pitch, it is weaker than the other two, sometimes sitting up too much. This was the culprit on the home run he allowed to Johanfran Garcia.

His 4^th pitch is his slider, which showed the worst control, as it is the newest pitch, added this offseason by the organization. Still, it showed a good amount of progress. The main issue was it seemed to not tunnel as well with his others, as there were a lot of tight misses taken. The most impressive part about all his pitches is his ability to command all four pitches to both sides of the plate. Especially with the sinker, he loves to backdoor the pitch onto the outside edge of the plate vs righties.

Despite the final line, the first 5 innings of the outing were dominant, only allowing 1 hit and 2 walks, and one of those walks was a very competitive at-bat with a questionable ball 4. The polish I saw in Hudson Valley seemed to be there on Friday night, as I believed it would. While he will need to continue to do this over the next several weeks, Cebert has made it clear that it is no mistake that he has been a fast riser within the organization. While the velocity isn’t to the level of Cam Schlittler, his ability to command and dominate with 3 good fastballs makes me giddy.

Ben Grable

Line: 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.53 FIP

Joining Jack Cebert from Hudson Valley was Ben Grable, who had been doing his damage from the bullpen. The 24-year-old, who celebrated his birthday on Sunday (Happy Birthday!), got into his first action on Tuesday in relief of Gerritt Cole before making his 2^nd appearance for Somerset on Saturday. Like Cebert, Grable continued to show why there is a lot to like in his profile.

Grable stuck to his bread and butter, relying heavily on his fastball. Sitting 95-97, Grable has complete ownership of this pitch from a control perspective. While he wasn’t getting the same number of chases on top of the zone as he was at Hudson Valley, he was still able to dominate his outings using the four-seamer. Even in just 2.1 innings of work, I feel comfortable that the four-seamer is about ready for AAA. The questions I have are about his secondaries. His slider, which he reserves for righties, has yet to impress me on the rarer occasions it is used. It seems to have too much movement, not looking like a competitive pitch in the zone. The splitter, which he uses primarily vs lefties, looks better right now. He did leave one hanging on top of the zone that was not swung on thankfully. He will need to show he can get that pitch down consistently, which I think is a skill he is still lacking.

I have been one of the biggest Ben Grable advocates early on in the 2026 season, and his first few outings give me no reason to stop. His fastball is electric and is the main tool he will need to succeed. However, his time at AA should be extended while he tries to improve the viability of his secondary offerings. All this to say, while I still believe there is a non-zero chance he could impact the Yankees bullpen this fall, it feels very remote.

George Lombard Jr.

Line: 21 PA, 4 H, 0 2B, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 3 BB, 5 K, 0 SB, .235/.350/.235

The most talked about promotion was that of George Lombard Jr, the top prospect in the Yankees organization. After receiving a quick promotion to AA last year as a 19-year-old, the now 20 Lombard is once again getting an aggressive promotion to AAA. With his debut in the major leagues seeming imminent, I wanted to see how Lombard’s successful AA adjustments translated to the next level.

If you know anything about Lombard’s offensive profile, you will be well aware that he has one of the better eyes at the plate than anyone, rarely swinging outside the zone. This was on full display this week. What caught my eye was his ability to adjust as well. In the 2^nd at-bat in his first game, Lombard chased an Austin Voth cutter that was off the plate. The next pitch, Voth threw a sweeper that had very similar tunneling with more break. Lombard did not fall for it, taking ball one. A couple of pitches later, Voth returned to the cutter, but this time Lombard caught it on the edge of the plate, driving it to deep right field in what was a leaping grab by the right fielder.

Lombard’s main issue last year was he would take too many hittable strikes but didn’t make enough zone contact to battle as he got into pitcher friendly counts. Early on in AA, he was showing a willingness to be more aggressive in the zone and even showed improved zone contact. I found this to be true this week as well. Lombard is stil no offering at much, especially in zone, but rarely did he hold his bat on pitches well in the zone. Instead, he was taking a lot of called strikes on the edges or taking a late breaking pitch for a strike. When he swung, he seemed to be making a lot of contact, whether fouling it off or putting it in play. This is backed up by a sterling 92% z-con rate from his first week.

Lombard has also improved his power. Several of his batted balls were over 100mph, including a couple of his ground ball singles as well as a first pitch laser directly at the center fielder. His ability to hit the ball consistently hard has been a revelation this year, and will raise his offensive floor. I continued to be impressed by Lombard’s ability to hit the ball where it came from. He is more than happy to drive a pitch on the outer half to right field as he is happy to pull a ball to the left side. While the pullair% at 8.3 could certainly be better, he can improve it and does have good all-fields power from the right side.

Besides continuing to be more aggressive in the zone and pulling the ball more, the K% continues to be a bit elevated. From watching his games at both levels, it does seem the AAA pitchers were able to catch more edges, which Lombard is more likely to take. He will need to be more willing to fight these pitches off. The other area of improvement is up and on top of the zone. Lombard has issues catching up to fastballs above the waist, and will be prone to chase up there if he is to chase at all. These aren’t red flags at all, but areas he can tighten to reach a higher ceiling. Overall, Lombard continues to do the things that you want from him. In the coming weeks, look for him to start barreling the ball up more and get some extra base knocks. If he does these things, that big league debut could come sooner than expected.

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