Coming up on the final week before the July 31 trade deadline, it certainly looks as if the annual trading frenzy will be a lot less frenzied than usual this season. Even this year’s rumors lack a certain amount of vitality.

When the biggest name likely to be moved is Florida’s A.J. Burnett – whose lifetime record of 43-44 with a 3.80 ERA is more indicative of his value than the skittery four-seam fastball and devastating knuckle-curve that occasionally make him look like a no. 1 starter – there’s not all that much to be excited about.

Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t quite a few players out there who could help any contender. Both now and for the future, the best value on the market is Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn. A career .248 hitter with minimal defensive value and the holder of the single-season strikeout record (195), the 25-year-old Dunn is so valuable because he does two things so well: Hit home runs and walk.

His 25 home runs this year rank fifth in the league. His 68 walks rank third, and his 66 runs rank fourth. Still, he isn’t a franchise player because he’s not a complete player – and there are legitimate questions as to whether he’s a truly frontline hitter. First, he’s benefited quite a bit from his home park, where he’s hit more than two-thirds of his long balls this year. Second, his inability to make contact prevents him from driving in as many runs as he should with his power.

Fortunately for teams thinking of acquiring him, all of these legitimate criticisms seem to have soured the Reds a bit on their best player. A 25-year-old with the potential to be a perennial home run champion does not generally become available on the trade market. Any team whose home park doesn’t notably suppress batting average (this excludes the Mets) and that doesn’t place a premium on athleticism or defense (again, this excludes the Mets) should be willing to give up just about any young pitcher in their system in a deal for Dunn.

After Dunn, the best player on the market is probably Philadelphia closer Billy Wagner. His contract is up after this year and he’s only available because the Phillies, who are falling short yet again, have apparently begun to panic and are convincing themselves that trading great players like Wagner – while using what loot they might get to acquire other veteran stars – is the best way to contend. This is really a stupid idea, but some team like the Red Sox might well be the beneficiary of the Phillies’ ineptitude.

Wagner has been a truly great reliever for a decade by any standard you care to use. He’s enjoying an entirely typical campaign this year, having struck out 46 and walked just 14 in 44 1/3 innings, while posting a 2.23 ERA in line with his career 2.50 mark. There’s no reason to think he couldn’t do for a team what Keith Foulke did for the Red Sox last October, or what Mariano Rivera has done for the Yankees so many times – ensure that the opponent has no chance of coming back in a close game.

There aren’t many closers like that, and teams with real ambitions of winning the World Series should be ready to pay what the Phillies are asking for Wagner.

After Wagner and Dunn, the market thins out in a hurry. Burnett is a perfectly solid mid-rotation starter, but his contract is up at the end of this year and any hopes that he might turn into an ace overnight are just that: They’re hopes, not something to pay for.

As for the hysteria of the Baltimore Orioles, it has far more to do with how they’ve fallen out of first than it does with any of Burnett’s merits. At least Burnett is in his own right a desirable pitcher. The Giants’ Jason Schmidt, whose 4.74 ERA in a fine pitcher’s park in San Francisco is consistent with diminished velocity and movement on his pitches. Schmidt is either injured or he’s simply no longer an ace. He’d be worth taking a flier on, but no more so than the dozen other pitchers who might be Cy Young candidates with another 5 mph on their fastballs and fewer questions about their health.

Among the really big names on the market, we come at last to current Ranger and former Yankee Alfonso Soriano. New York fans know that between his indifferent defense and maddening inability to work the count or at least wait for pitches he can actually hit, Soriano is among the players in baseball whose statistics are in the least accord with his real value.

Should the Mets or Yankees covet Soriano, as is rumored, they’d do well to look at his home/road splits. In hitter-friendly Ameriquest Field, Soriano is hitting .324 BA/.358 OBA/.676 SLG, with 17 home runs. On the road, he’s hitting .230/.270/.382 with six home runs. Granting that hitters who play in extreme hitter’s parks sometimes see a hangover effect that deflates their road numbers, the sad truth is that anyone picking up Soriano is more likely to see performance in line with that second set of numbers than with the first. Buyer beware.

As usual, though, it’s probably not the big names on the market who will make a difference in this year’s pennant races. The upgrade from a decent player to star is in many cases less than that from a scrub to a decent player. Reds third baseman Joe Randa, Pirates starter Kip Wells, Mariners outfielder Randy Winn, and players of that ilk aren’t particularly sexy, but could end up being more valuable to the right teams than players like Schmidt and Soriano will be to the teams that acquire or hold on to them.

If you want to see which teams are positioning themselves to surprise in the last two months, forget about the ones trading for washed-up or over-hyped All-Stars. Instead, look for the teams trading for players that they actually need.