The optimistic case is simple: they're above .500, they're two games out of a wild card spot, they had the toughest schedule on the front 9, and they're getting back two All-Stars in Chris Sale and Trevor Story, two rotation pieces whose peripherals suggest some bad luck in Whitlock and Houck, and excellent RHP reliever in John Schreiber and another solid LHP in Bleier who should shore up the back half of their bullpen. The offense has been top five and hasn't even seen Devers at full power. Getting your SS back, assuming the UCL is in tip-top shape, a relief ace, and three starters who all had FIPS around 4, all against a much easier second-half schedule -- that's a recipe for a team that could take off and end up in the 90-93 win range. A recipe to make some noise in the playoffs. Even the most pessimistic posters should (I say should) be able to imagine that happening.
The absolute worst case scenario is Sale's arm doesn't recover, Story can't play SS or doesn't even come back this year, Schreiber gets injured again, Bleier is toast, and maybe Houck and Whitlock come back but are actually guys who underperform their peripherals as starters and become 5.00 ERA types. Or maybe Paxton goes down, or Jansen's finally goes kaput. That team still gets an easier back 9 and has a 1/4 chance to make the postseason, where anything can happen. Or all of those things happen and more, - Devers goes down, Turner acquires old-man-itis, Duran's BABIP is .200 in the second-half, and the team falls out of the race for the wild-card. Not likely, but possible.
The middle ground is something like, Sale comes back but only pitches four or five more starts before going down again, Story comes back but has to play 2B, Houck comes back and looks a lot better but Whitlock continues to give up ill-timed gopher balls. Those guys have to be limited to 4-5 innings or so and the team ends up having to do bullpen games to manage them. I would note that that team would likely still be better than the team they're running out there right now, and that team is already above .500 and 2 games out of the wild card. So maybe a 84 win - 88 win team: again, a team that could sneak into the playoffs and make some noise. Teams that have won that few games have gone on to win the world series, after all. So the middle ground case is mildly optimistic, too.
If the chance of them making the playoffs is really 25% as they are presently constructed, you go for it, I think. Maybe you sell of Duvall and Kike for prospects, but you don't deal Paxton. The upside for this team is too high, I think. The last thing we would all want to see if Paxton and Jansen get sold off only for Sale, Story, and Schreiber all to come back and look great.
