I think you may be underestimating what the Sox lineup could be with Soler right in the middle of it, at Fenway, between Devers and Casas. .340 OBP last year i believe (which is the biggest reason i like him over Duvall). The Athletic projected his contract at 3yr/45m 2 and a half months ago, and he obviously hasn't received that from a team yet. He can DH a bunch but you could also hide him in LF at Fenway, especially if Rafaela is in CF a lot of those days. Lot's of potential OBP guys in Grissom, Devers, Casas, Soler, Yoshida and Abreu. Some speed in Duran, O'Neil and Ceddane as well. keep that line moving and make opposing pitcher throw a lot of pitches. That has always been what the Sox do best when they're at their best. Grab Ryu or Paxton to round out the rotation. Hope that the B's make a positive difference in all of their current pitchers. If you squint, you can see a pretty fun team that could compete for a WC.
I think the line up is (and will be) pretty good, with or without Soler. FWIW.
The starting pitching, I think, is an abomination to the name "Red Sox" that will go on the front of the home whites. FWIW, I'm actually pretty bullish on Breslow and Bailey, both in the short and the long term. I absolutely think they're going to make improvements on the pitching staff. Unfortunately, I think the most likely (slightly optimistic) scenario is that they get pretty decent "jumps" for 2/5ths of the rotation (and my bet on those two are Bello and Giolito). Best case scenario, its 3/5, but that to me is incredibly unlikely. Even more unlikely that it happens early enough in the season for it to matter in terms of playoffs vs not playoffs. For me, adding someone like Paxton or Lorenzen does literally nothing except increase the floor of wins (and in my opinion only puts them up around 77 for sure) and just reduces the upside - as in I think it's far more likely (though still highly unlikely overall) that B&B hit on sizable improvements from 5/5 of the current rotation than it is on James Paxton actually being healthy a full season.
*It's possible they get nothing more out of Bello, nothing more out of Crawford, but make Houck and Winckowski into top half of the rotation starters, of course and then the team is fine short and long term, but I personally find that scenario unlikely.*
What it comes down to, at least for me, is the idea of "competing for a wildcard" and what that means. By the numbers, they were "competing for a wild card" up until something like August 15th of last season, give or take a few days, and I don't want to look it up. But it was incredibly obvious that if (and when) they didn't improve their starting pitching, they were going to fall off - both because of the way the schedule lined up and not being able to rely on openers all the time, the fact that other teams they were competing with added and they didn't, the "waiting on injured guys" mindset, and the fact that the entire freaking team knew it.
Also, with 6 playoff spots now, it takes a heck of a lot to "NOT" compete for WC3 through the first call it 4 months of the season. Like a Mets level kind of stink. As of August 1st last year, there were only 4 teams in the AL that were more than 5 games out of 6th place (or the last WC, generally speaking b/c I'm not looking a division leaders) and they were Oakland, KC, Detroit and ChW - the Sox obviously aren't that bad. The extra WC spot is great because it gives more teams playoff baseball and playoff baseball is fun. It's awful because a team can be below .500 after 2/3 of the season (Cleveland was 53-55) and still technically competing for a WC3 spot.
I don't think you have to "squint" to see a team that can be within 5 games of 6th place on August 1st. I think you have to be incredibly optimistic (which is fine, I'm not begrudging anyone that) to look at the team and say "yep, they're going to be better than Baltimore, Tampa, Toronto, NYY, Hou, Tex and Seattle" - two of which will miss the playoffs anyway.