DALLAS — At best, the Yankees reached agreement with a modern Jimmy Key in Max Fried — an athletic, imperturbable, championship-proven lefty. 

At worst, the Yankees just agreed to an eight-year, $218 million pact with a pitcher who missed time the past two years with forearm issues, which often is a precursor to elbow issues and … 

At the moment, the Yankees are revealing their post-Juan Soto hand — that there is no way to replace his offense, so they are going to try to have a fierce rotation and improve their defense. 

Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone all followed the disastrous technical play in the World Series loss to the Dodgers by talking about having a bad Game 5 or Series — as if the dorsal fin weren’t apparent above the surface all year that this was a problem. But Yankees VP of baseball operations Tim Naehring was on the team’s network, YES, on Monday night saying the club will have to redouble its efforts on playing a sounder brand of baseball.