Hey! There’s six days left until the trading deadline. The most exciting time of the year, right? Except… feels like something is missing, doesn’t it? Sure, there’s talk about the Dodgers possibly going after Roy Halladay (ain’t gonna happen!), and there’s some word about relievers (which probably will happen), but it’s just not the same as in years past.

Just look at some of the ridiculousness we had to deal with in 2008. You had he-said/she-said over C.C. Sabathia, Tracy Ringolsby whining that the Dodgers were upstaged by the Angels’ deal for Mark Teixeira, and the endless rumors about absurd asking prices for Jack Wilson. In case you’ve forgotten how much fun the whole Pittsburgh rumor mill was, take small children out of the room and look back:

The Pirates envision a long-term outfield that would include Kemp and Nate McLouth, who was selected to his first All-Star Game on Sunday, on the corners, flanking center fielder Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates’ top prospect, who is playing at Class AAA Indianapolis.

FOR JACK WILSON. If your nose has stopped bleeding, just remember that we went through this same thing in 2007, when we were told to trade Loney, Kershaw, and Ethier for Teixeira.

But this year? Hell, even MLBtraderumors hasn’t tagged a rumor under “Dodgers” for nearly 30 hours, at least as of this writing. Other than Steve Phillips – who I try to ignore, because it’s not nice to make fun of the “specially-abled” – wanting to trade Kershaw for Halladay, there’s not even been a whole lot of stupid ideas to refute. It’s in large part due to LA’s top prospects graduating from “prospect” status, to be sure, and it’s not neccessarily a bad thing. It’s just a different feeling around this team at this time of year, is all.

(Okay, when you’re a blogger always on the lookout for good material, it might be a little bit of a bad thing. I look forward to seeing some hack come out with an idea for trading Kershaw and Andrew Lambo for Carl Pavano tomorrow.)