Beane doesn't deal in uncomplicated

It seems we always do this when Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane makes a trade: namely, try to figure out why it's a good idea when it seems not to be.Take this Matt Holliday, for instance. Holliday has the resume and name that the Athletics have lacked, but he also has one other thing, the one thing we haven't thought Beane would be able to seriously tackle:Holliday's agent, The Scott Boras.Even though there are rumors that the A's will broaden their 2009 payroll beyond the subsistence level, it is hard to imagine that Holliday is more than a one-year rental at best, and maybe even trade-deadline bait. It is almost impossible to conceive that Beane and Boras could agree on a longer-term deal that would net Holliday (and Boras) maximum dollars, especially given that the A's are no more likely to contend in 2009 than they were in 2008.And for one year of Holliday, the A's have dealt Huston Street, the onetime closer for whom they no longer have a use; Greg Smith, the good-hitting left-handed pitcher who spent 2008 getting cuffed around more often than not; and Carlos Gonzalez, the outfielder who was -- and A's fans need to reminded of this -- the Oaktown centerpiece in the Dan Haren deal that turned out not so well.In short, this looks like a trade that sets up another trade down the road rather than makes a bold and aggressive statement for the immediate future. The hamster wheel spins faster and faster but stays firmly bolted to the bottom of the cage.Unless ...We've learned over the years that there is always some "unless" that needs to be discussed when Beane works the market, and maybe he has decided after watching his utterly anonymous team log a 75-86 record before fewer people than they've drawn in years that he would be willing to do what he swore he wouldn't after the Jermaine Dye deal:Go long and deep on a player contract.Holliday is not old (28) and his statistics would be impressive even after you adjusted for park factors, but he has played 150 games only twice in his five-year career. The A's have paid a lot of money for sedentary players over the years, and the $13.5 million he is due this year would figure to rise when his contract expires at the end of the season.Thus, the rewards of the Holliday deal most likely are more of the same -- an indefinite future that might or might not lead to more future later.True, the A's offense in 2008 was perfectly awful. Lots of strikeouts, no right-handed power, and no legitimate threat to make you want to come into the park, let alone stay for the late innings. Holiday aggressively addresses both those voids.But what the past few years have taught us about A's baseball is that one should not got too comfortable with big-ticket items. Their principal function is to lure other buyers to acquire them just as the locals are getting used to seeing them in the home uniforms, and Holliday seems even less likely to stick around than, say, anyone else in the entire world.Not that anyone should have been all that attached to Smith, Street or Gonzalez, mind you. Gonzalez had long stretches where making mere contact was a task, and though big strikeout numbers can be tolerated in a 40-homer, 125-RBI guy, Gonzalez is at best blush a Carlos Pena type -- a good hitter years from now.As for Smith, he hated challenging hitters and as a result, was typically the architect of his downfalls. And Street was so deep in the organizational doghouse, if only for his diminishing results, that not even a litter of puppies could have rescued him.In other words, the A's gave away one potentially valuable chip, Gonzalez, for one very valuable chip, Holliday, but for how long? If we know Beane, and it isn't hard to do, we think it will be briefly.Thus, the central question is how long does Holliday have to stay for this to be a helpful deal for Oakland? Or asked a different way, can July 31 be enough Holliday? Sept. 30? Or is Beane really planning to make him the new enduring centerpiece of a team that didn't have any in 2008? Is he really eager to engage Boras with an open marketplace staring them both in the face?Nahhh, we wouldn't bet that way, either.(E-mail Ray Ratto at rratto@sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)