00:00Well, it is Friday Night Baseball tonight on Apple and joining us now to talk a little bit,
00:05maybe some positive about the Red Sox since it's been all negative all morning long is our friend
00:12Heidi Watney. Heidi, good morning. Good morning. How are you? How are you? Doesn't sound like
00:18you're doing very great. You feel like a missed opportunity when it comes to the Red Sox and
00:26what they didn't do yesterday? I do, but I think that a lot of teams that were in the market for
00:34starting pitching didn't get what they wanted, right? A lot of GMs said just the asking price was
00:39too high. I mean, Red Sox are going against the Astros this weekend and they didn't get a starter
00:44either and that was high on their priority list. So I heard that from a lot of GMs around the league
00:49yesterday. Just the asking price was too high on starting pitching. How are the Red Sox perceived
00:55nationally? You know, locally we've seen a real shift. There have been a national understanding
00:59of sort of the new path of the Red Sox? I think the national outlook is pretty much the same.
01:07On the Red Sox, it's kind of surprising that a team that can operate like a big market team,
01:13it's one of the premier teams in baseball in terms of the franchise and the respect that it garners.
01:20And they have been operating on a lower budget lately. And just the moves that they make aren't,
01:28you know, you saw yesterday, AJ Preller, he's on a totally different spectrum going all in.
01:35But Dodgers didn't do a whole lot because the offseason, they stockpiled. I mean,
01:41they're spending money like crazy. Mets are spending money like crazy. Even Yankees went really big
01:46yesterday at the trade deadline. Bigger than I expected them to. And the Red Sox, they show a
01:52lot of promise. They're still a very good team. But they just seem to kind of not, they kind of
01:58seem to be in the middle. They're not doing nothing. And they're still a big team and have a huge fan
02:03base, as I know from my time here. But they're not going as big as they could, it seems.
02:10Heidi, I was just going to bring up your time here. I mean, you have a special connection to
02:14Massachusetts and to the Red Sox. So for you, looking back to 2008, to where we are standing
02:19at 2025, what's the biggest difference you see, whether it's the team, ownership or fan base?
02:26Oh, gosh, when I was here in 2008, it seemed like the Red Sox were one of the those, you know,
02:32the Yankees, the Phillies, the Mets, the Dodgers, the teams that you expected to be going all in
02:37every year, doing whatever it takes to win a championship. That doesn't seem to be the case
02:42as much anymore. But it's still a franchise that has so much history. It's still a city
02:49that is so proud of its baseball team, even though everyone seems to be a bit not happy
02:56with the team for the last couple of years. And understandably so, right? You're not going
03:00to come if they're not putting a winning product on the field. Postseason baseball is what it's
03:06about. That's what the grind's about. So it does seem to be operating a little bit differently
03:10than the team did in 2008. But it's still such a, like, I just love Boston. I love the Red
03:17Sox. I, you know, the organization was good to me. I love my time here. So I'd like to see
03:23them get back to that consistent prominence that it seemed like when I was there from 2008
03:28through 2011 that it seemed like they were chasing every year.
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