Could the Yankees be a fit for Greg Holland?

Rumor has it that the Yankees are trying to build a dominate bullpen much like the Royals had this year. They already have excellent reliever Dellin Betances and just "inked" another excellent reliever Andrew Miller to a four-year $36,000,000 deal. Last night there were conflicting reports whether or not the Yankees made an offer to their former closer David Robertson. Jack Curry of Yes Network tweeted

Yankees never made an official offer to David Robertson. So he wasn't picking between White Sox and Yankees.

— Jack Curry (@JackCurryYES) December 9, 2014

Meanwhile, Jon Heyman wrote that they Yankees are in fact going for Robertson:

yanks still trying for robertson even after landing miller, may go 4 years. http://t.co/IOWTuKU3rc

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 9, 2014

Of course, Robertson ended up signing with the White Sox for 4/$46M and put a fly in the Yankees Royals Cerberus-style bullpen.

Despite losing out on Miller, the Yankees are being rumored to pursue a reliever via trade. Depending on how your view of life, baseball, and things in general, fortunately or unfortunately the Royals have a surplus of relievers (if that's a real thing).

The Yankees are notoriously known for generally having no concern for their farm system and treat prospects as essentially canon fodder, so giving up prospects for Holland (or Davis or Herrera) isn't necessarily a barrier unlike say the Rays.

So what options could the Yankees give to the Royals to fill their needs?

Martin Prado:

Prado has spent time in 2B, 3B, and the OF over his career. For 2015, Steamer projects Prado at 2.3 fWAR and a slightly above average batting line. As usual, Prado isn't really flashy, but he's one of the few players who's just been consistently good for years, only putting up a less than 2 win season basically just once in his career.

Prado figures to be the Yankees answer at 3B this year (alongside newly acquired Didi Gregorious and whoever plays 2B for them - Jose Pirela?) so this might not be a fit here.

Rob Refsnyder:

I wrote about Refsnyder a few weeks back and how he had a Mookie Betts like ascent into the prospect world. Don't confuse the two though as Refsnyder doesn't project to be the same style of well above average player that Betts does. Refsynder played the OF in college but the Yankees converted him to 2B in the minors. Defensively he's still raw there so a move back to the OF could help him focus more on his bat at the cost of the defensive profile penalty.

According to Carson Cistulli and his adjusted Steamer projections, Refsynder would produce a line as such:

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	fWAR
550	0.262	0.328	0.39	102	2.3

Not a superstar profile, but an average player. A note as well that Refsnyder is 24 years old, but also the above line projects him to play at second instead of the outfield.

A final note of Refsynder, Cistulli also featured him in an article listing "Every Prospect with Kyle Seager's Same Profile." You should almost certainly remind yourself that Seager was a 5.5 win player last year and signed a $100M contract with the Mariners.

Gary Sanchez:

The previous two mentioned players could fill the Royals outfield need. Sanchez would most certainly not do that. Instead, he would fill the Royals DH/1B need left by Billy Butler, if the Royals deemed they needed a dedicated DH. However, like Refsynder, I have also profiled Gary Sanchez previously.

Of importance though is that Sanchez isn't just a 1B/DH, but he has spent significant time at catcher in his career. While not known as a defensively adept receiver behind "the dish" Sanchez provides passable skills defensively to at least play there once or twice a week.

Sanchez brings the coveted, rare, above average power from right side of the plate. If given 450 plate appearances, at catcher, Steamer believes Sanchez could possible produce such as line as

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	fWAR
450	0.239	0.293	0.386	89	1.8

For the intermediate future, Sanchez seems to be blocked from catching as the Yankees have Brian McCann. Trading him to the Royals would produce a similar blockage as the Royals have the much better Salvador Perez.

Don't be fooled though in thinking there are many similarities between Gary Sanchez and failed former Yankee catching prospect, and notable ice cream thrower, Jesus Montero. The bat on Sanchez is much better than Montero as well as the defensive "chops."

Truthfully, there doesn't seem to be a large amount of options between the two clubs, at least for an immediate impact for the Royals. Luis Severino is the Yankees best prospect, but he is 20 years old with just 25 innings in AA. The Yankees don't have a large amount of prospects in AAA or deemed relatively MLB ready. Meanwhile, their rotation may be short one pitcher given their relatively thin current depth there. The recently injured CC Sabathia and oft injured Ivan Nova find themselves flanked by Masahiro Tanka (himself recently severely injured) and another oft injured Michael Pineda.