We were one of the worst teams in 2012, and look what happened in 2013.
A lot depends on the foundation that "bad team" has and how many injuries or abnormally bad years players had that year.
Granted, our foundation is not what it was between 2012 and 2013, but we have some nice pieces and a hell of a lot of players coming off injury season(s) and/or bad years. Sure, some of all may not comeback to form, but you seem to be counting on your players in similar situations to come back and lead the Yanks to something special.
In a sense, if things go right for the Sox, we could see "additions" from some or many of these players:
Sale (7.6 WAR in '17, 6.2 in '18 or even 3.6 in '19)
Eovaldi (1.5 WAR in just 11 starts in '18)
ERod (3.7 WAR in '19 or even 2.1 in '18)
JD (1.031 OPS in '18/ .939 in '19)
Beni (.830 OPS in '18/ .774 in '19)
Devers (.916 OPS in '19)
Vaz (.798 in '19)
Chavis (.776 OPS in '19)
or something special from...
Dalbec (pro-rate 75% of 2020 to 500+ PAs)
Houck (pro-rate 75% of 2020 to 120+ IP)
Renfroe (.805 in '18/ .778 in '19)
Of course, getting all of these players to return to form at once is wishful thinking, but expecting them all to be as bad or injured as they were in 2019 and/or 2020 is wishful thinking on your part.
Then, we know we be adding some quality players to the mix in the next 4-6 weeks. It is not a stretch to think we might compete for the WC slot, this year and a ring in 2022. Yes, we will need a few things to go right, all at the same time, but by 2022, Downs and a few other farm hands may add some value in big ways, too. Our budget could expand bigly in 2022, too.