Mike Celizic

If you thought last year’s trade-deadline activity was dull, just wait for this year. You’re likely to see more action in the backyard watching the grass clippings turn into compost.

It’s not that there aren’t any teams with needs and the desire to fill them.

Those teams are everywhere, and, as usual at this time of year, most of them would dearly love to get more pitching. It’s just that with so many teams still thinking they have a shot at the postseason and so few big names on the block, this could be as slow a trade season as we’ve ever seen. And Tuesday's deadline is closing fast.

Last year didn’t offer a lot. Bobby Abreu was probably the biggest name to switch teams, and he played well for the Yankees down the stretch. But he didn’t help New York get past Detroit — their deadline pick-up was Sean Casey — in the playoffs. Carlos Lee also moved, traded by the Brewers, who weren’t able to sign the free-agent-to-be, to the Rangers for four players.

The Dodgers managed to wheedle Greg Maddux away from the Cubs, but they, too, didn’t get out of the first round of the playoffs. The Mets got burned with Shawn Green, and St. Louis, the winners of the World Series, settled for bringing in Jeff Weaver, who ended up pitching well in the playoffs for the first time — and maybe the last time — in his life.

But the big names who were supposed to be available for the right price — Alfonso Soriano, Barry Zito, Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Tejada — didn’t move.

This year, the big names are few and the likelihood of their moving small.

The Mets are said to be doing everything they can to pry Roy Oswalt from the Astros, but while Houston may know it has no chance this year, it still doesn’t want to ship one of the premier starters in the game out of town.

Willis has been the same way in Florida — a bad team’s one superior player.

Management could trade him, but only at the risk of alienating the team’s last 23 fans.

The Giants, though, might consider trading Matt Morris, a serviceable starter, and might even consider moving Barry Zito. The problem there is that Zito, so highly pursued last year, isn’t pitching any better than your average fourth or fifth starter, and a team would have to be desperate to take on his salary on the hope that he can rediscover his mojo.

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What you’re more likely to see are the White Sox consider dumping Jose Contreras, Javier Vazquez and/or Jon Garland; Vazquez and Garland have decent sub-4.00 ERAs but neither is better than a game over .500, while Contreras has been a train wreck. Still, they were key cogs in the Sox’s World Series run two years ago, and they can start ballgames.

When you look at the top relievers who are available, you understand why the White Sox starters look pretty good. We’re talking the Astros’ Brad Lidge, who had suffered a psychological meltdown before injury finished the job, and the Rangers’ Eric Gagne, no longer the dominant closer he used to be.

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