Tony DeMarco

Even Matt Holliday was surprised. Not with the news that he was on the way out of Colorado. We all knew that was coming. But by where he landed.

Oakland? Another low-revenue, unlikely contender with no chance of holding on to him beyond the 2009 season? And in a pitcher-friendly home ballpark he won’t like hitting in?

Yes, it’s safe to say Holliday and his young family will be renting in the Bay Area next summer. This thing has a Billy Beane flip job written all over it.

You can debate the relative merits of Beane’s numbers-crunching approach that deifies on-base percentage and feeds on finding bargain-basement performance. But there is little arguing that Beane is the game’s most-creative and ingenious dealer. And he has struck again.

Last winter, Beane dealt away Dan Haren and some spare parts, and injected more than a dozen young players into the system and onto the big-league roster.

Beane has traded away home-grown stars, kept others until they left through free agency and collected the draft choices, and has done this rent-a-star thing before: See Johnny Damon, 2001; Jose Guillen, 2003; and Jason Kendall, 2005.

And we’re going to see it again with Holliday. What we can’t know yet is the end game — a pre-trade deadline deal if the A’s can’t hang with the Los Angeles Angels in AL West, or the two draft choices if Holliday finishes next season in an A’s uniform before bolting for a Scott Boras-brokered mega-deal elsewhere.

Can the A’s contend with Holliday?

Of all the available right-handed bats out there, only Manny Ramirez compares favorably, and even then, it’s very close. For certain, the change in home parks is going to adversely affect Holliday’s numbers.

But his home-road splits aren’t abnormally wide, and his overall three-year averages represent unquestioned excellence — .329 average, 32 homers, 113 RBI, .929 OPS. In other words, he’s going to hit anywhere.

But even with Holliday as a huge upgrade over Emil Brown and others in left field and in the No. 3 spot in the lineup, here’s what currently surrounds him: Kurt Suzuki, Daric Barton, Mark Ellis, Bobby Crosby, Jack Hannahan, Ryan Sweeney, Travis Buck and Jack Cust. So hold those Tampa Bay Rays comparisons, OK?

Beane does have more to spend and could make runs at Rafael Furcal, Jason Giambi and others on short-term deals with plenty of incentives.

Then, the A’s could have a lineup that would be significantly better than 2008, when they were dead last in the AL in runs, batting average, hits and slugging percentage, and were next-to-last in on-base percentage.

But even Beane said after the Holliday deal: “I’m not Pollyanna-ish enough to believe you acquire one player and go from 75 to 95 wins.’’

So the likeliest scenario has Holliday in the position that Ramirez and CC Sabathia were a few months ago, as a race-impacting mid-season acquisition.

That’s not a scenario Rockies ownership and GM Dan O’Dowd were willing to put themselves in — although it’s hard to understand why not. Especially in the NL West, where the Padres are going all Florida Marlin payroll-wise, and there is no Angels-like juggernaut with which to contend.

Why not keep Holliday for awhile in 2009, and see if you can stay in the NL West race, and if not, then deal him for the best package available at that point?

You can at least make a case that some team will be desperate enough at that point to offer a premium package that the Rockies didn’t really get with Street, Smith (coming off arthroscopic elbow surgery) and Gonzalez.

In fact, Street might not be around long in Colorado, either, as O’Dowd — who has his own history of flipping and hyper-dealing — might send Street along to one of the many teams looking for a closer, among them the Tigers, Indians, Mets, Rays and Braves.

And the Rockies still need to add a No. 2-3 starting pitcher, as well as a left-handed reliever. That’s why Garrett Atkins also is being shopped, with the Indians, Twins and Angels among the interested.

But the Rockies also will lose closer Brian Fuentes in free agency, so Street could stick around and compete with Manny Corpas and possibly Taylor Buchholz for the closer role.

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But Holliday already is gone, Fuentes is on his way out the door, and if Atkins goes, too, there will be only a slight resemblance between the 2009 Rockies and the ones that shocked the world on their way to the 2007 NL pennant. And that’s not a good thing.