And the winner is...

The annual trading frenzy, which leads up to the July 31st non-waiver trading deadline in Major League Baseball (MLB), witnessed most contending teams adding a player or two for the stretch run as they aim to make the post-season. Though no winner can be crowned until the playoffs actually start (or finish), we can take a look at teams that appear to have improved the most. The teams that jump out are as follows:

Houston -- With the acquisitions of Pedro Astacio and Mike Williams, while only removing Scott Elarton (who you really have to feel sorry for going to Colorado), and the recently recalled Tony McKnight from the roster, they have improved both their starting rotation and bullpen.

Oakland -- The A's added Jermaine Dye by dealing a handful of prospects. The most notable was second baseman Jose Ortiz who had lost his job in Oakland to Frank Menechino.

Chicago (NL)-- Fred McGriff for a song and some cash from Tampa solidifies the first base position. David Weathers upgrades the bullpen. Losing Ruben Quevedo may hurt in the long run but this deal was about now.

However, the most improved team appears to be the Boston Red Sox. Yes, the BoSox made one deal landing closer/set-up man Ugeth Urbina from the Montreal Expos for Tomo Ohka and a minor leaguer. Urbina will give the Red Sox flexibility with the surprisingly inconsistent Derek Lowe and the oft-injured Rod Beck. Ohka started the year in the Red Sox rotation, but has been up and down from AAA and has been inconsistent as well. Long term I like Ohka a lot and think he will pitch very well in Montreal. The Red Sox big improvement did not come from making trades, the improvements come from getting healthy.

Despite all their injuries and team turmoil, Boston has been remarkably competitive all season keeping pace with the New York Yankees in the American League East. It appeared in spring training that the Red Sox were going to be doomed this season with the loss of All-Star Shortstop Nomar Garciaparra for four months and the fact they were going to start the season with two rookies in the rotation Tomo Ohka and Paxton Crawford.

When the season started things on the surface did not appear any better. The Carl Everett/Jimy Williams feud flared up, newly acquired Chris Stynes went down and Derek Lowe was pitching well below average. However, the Red Sox were winning.

Soon David Cone came back and Derek Lowe started to turn the corner. Chris Stynes was also healthy. Things were looking up. BOOM! There goes Jason Varitek, Pedro Martinez, and Carl Everett. Derek Lowe then started to head south again and the trading deadline was looming. Does Dan Duquette panic? No.

Patience starts to show it returns. Nomar is back, Brett Saberhagen is unexpectedly back (though his start last night was somewhat lackluster), and Carl Everett has returned. The Red Sox are reporting that Pedro has started long tossing and should be back by Labor Day and Jason Varitek is on schedule to return at the end of August.

The bottom line is while other teams were trading prospects, cash and parts off their roster to improve, the Red Sox are in a very fortunate situation where they have been able to add, by the fact they did not have them available to them, several stars, without tinkering with their roster at all.

The question remains though -- is this enough to finally exercise the curse of the Babe. For some reason I think they will find away to blow it.