I doubt saving any pocket would mean winning a year earlier. A lot of the tanks and equipment captured in these pockets were old out of date equipment. The manufacturing for the new equipment was only coming on line. That said I do think that saving a major pocket could well be worth 3 to 6 months depending in which pocket you are talking about.
Avoiding the Kiev pocket could very much lead to the war ending a year or even two (if the Soviets get very lucky) not just because of the extra men and equipment (which really was of mixed quality and even the old stuff could still be made use of... plus, trucks. Trucks are almost always useful) but because of what it does to the advance of AGS. The destruction of the Southwestern Front OTL essentially laid the entirety of Eastern Ukraine bare despite the fact that AGS's logistics were utterly crippled by the destruction of bridges over the mid-lower D'niepr. The Soviets simply weren't able to muster the forces needed to stop them for several months. If the Southwestern Front falls back to the base of the Kiev salient in August 1941, then AGS's ability to advance into the Donbass and Kharkov industrial regions against such resistance is poor.
Retaining these regions is a big deal for the Soviets. Despite the evacuation of industry that was deemed war essential, not everything that could be evacuated was and there was
a lot that couldn't be moved. And what was moved couldn't produce while being moved and had to be brought back up to speed once moved, which took awhile, and deal with all sorts of dislocations in terms of lost supporting industries and raw materials. We're talking a
big chunk of Soviet ammunition production, a lot of tractor and vehicle factories that could be making tanks or other vehicles, chemical industries, and so-on. If the Soviets retain Kharkov and don't have to evacuate the massive T-34 facility there in '41, then that's potentially as much as an additional 1,000 T-34s for the Soviets in 1941 alone. Retaining the Donbas could possibly prevent the famine in heavy ammunition that occurred in the Winter of '41/'42 which hamstrung Soviet artillery. Retention of East Ukraine and Southwestern Russia also leaves the Soviets in possession of a lot more potential manpower, their richest agricultural lands, and their single largest source of raw and smelted materials (iron, coal, copper, bauxite, aluminum, steel, etc).
The other big deal is what this means if AGC proceeds to go for Moscow as per OTL, which is a reasonable assumption given the German obsession with dealing a knockout blow before Christmas, it will do so with a even more grossly exposed southern flank then it possessed OTL. The straightening of the line by Southwestern Front's withdrawal would allow it to pull an army or two out if the line that could then be transferred to join in the Soviet winter counteroffensive against this flank, as could Soviet forces that historically had to be used to patch up the hole left by the destruction of the Southwestern Front. Given how close AGC came to catastrophe on a tide-turning scale OTL, having a more overexposed front get struck by even larger Soviet forces could very well lead to the sort of encirclement the Soviets sought that winter... the sort which decisively shifts the war in their favor.