Silly Season

As the trade deadline approaches, it's the same old story - silly season is here. GMs everywhere want your young, low-salaried talent in exchange for their aging, expensive, 'battle-tested' veterans. So we'll endure the talk of Jon Lieber (puh-lease) for Jon Lester and more.

Two words for the Red Sox management. JEFF BAGWELL. The Sox exchanged a possible Hall-of-Famer for Larry Andersen. Larry Freaking Andersen.

The Sox have assembled a young and talented pitching corps (Beckett, Papelbon, Lester, Hansen, Delcarmen) to supplement Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield. What they can get from Foulke, Clement, and Wells is frankly unknowable. But the Sox have the best chance to win, year in and year out by NOT DEALING away young talent for losing teams disposable players. Yes, disposable. JEFF BAGWELL.

Oh, but what if Toronto or the White Sox gets Jon Lieber? Richard Thal wrote about it in The Winners' Curse. Invariably, bidding wars result in overpaying for mediocrity. We can only hope that Theo Epstein and the front office are reading their behavioral finance, such as Lifson and Geist's Psychology of Investing. JEFF BAGWELL.

Similarly, Sox fans proposing trading Alex Cora and Julian Tavarez for Travis Hafner had better take their medicine. What the trading deadline teaches us every year is that it's difficult to make MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL trades. JEFF BAGWELL.

If what we saw last weekend was the real Kason Gabbard, I'd take him over most of the millionaire retreads that Desperately Seeking Kason GMs want to dump on the Sox. When you're tempted to get silly, just try to remember those two little words, JEFF BAGWELL. Just think BAG JOB or SANDBAGGED, where we don't want to be.