I always consider myself optimistic going into the season. I felt like so many times last season we were just this close in many of the games - 8-14-1 in games 2 runs or less, which in many of those games comes down to 1-2 plays per game, or something as simple as failing to do the little things (2-out walks, scoring from 3rd less than 2 out, etc.) and I think a lot of games the guys were playing very timid because of fear of potential repercussions that would occur should they mess up in a situation, which more times than not actually causes you to mess up.
So going off of that purely emotional breakdown, little ole optimistic me thinks that a best case scenario for this upcoming season is something like 15-15 in the SEC, which just comes down to essentially holding serve at home and not getting swept on the road, and is not out of the realm of possibilities. The SEC schedule shapes up a little in our favor in that regard cause we miss Florida and Vandy, while 3 of the 4 from the East (UGA, UT, MIZZOU) are projected to finish in the bottom of the division. Obviously, we still have to play everyone in the West, and that's always a murderer's row when you're looking up at everyone, but again we lost 6 games against West opponents by 1-run.
Of course, if you're going to put out a best case, you need to be prepared for a worst case, and IMO, worst case is we get swept in most of the road series, maybe winning one game at UT, but then we get swept by any combo of UK, AU, Ole Miss, Miss St, etc. resulting in another 5-8 win SEC season.
Personally, I think after the debacle of last year, a 10-win SEC campaign would be a solid result which is just avoiding being swept, and anything over that is gravy. And I'm thinking that's an optimistic "realistic" case.