All the moves the A’s have made this winter seemed to indicate they’re committed to youth with an eye on 2015. But then they went and signed Coco Crisp and Bartolo Colon.

Why? Let’s take a look at each and try to figure it out.

Coco Crisp: 2 years, $14 million, with a club option for 2014

Considering that Crisp is only one of four outfielders the A’s now have on their 40-man roster, you can say that this signing fills a need. But this is a lot of money for a guy who has averaged 87 games played in a season the last three years and just turned 32.

The most logical reasoning I can think of is that they don’t want to rush Collin Cowgill, and may start the 25-year-old outfielder in AAA Sacramento to start the season. There’s also the idea of name recognition – something the A’s don’t have much of anymore after trading away Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey. And then there’s the idea of a possible “salary floor” – the magic number that MLB wants every team to spend, otherwise they get in the doghouse. And the A’s don’t want to be in MLB’s doghouse right now, while they’re waiting on a franchise-making decision on a possible move to San Jose.

Bartolo Colon: 1 year, $2 million

This deal, though shorter and cheaper, was a little more surprising. Oddly though, I think it makes more sense than the Crisp deal. Colon is a 38-year-old starting pitcher clearly in the last year or two of his career, as he’s joining a team that is not competing at all for 2012. Why would he come here? Well there’s really no better place for a pitcher to go when he wants to make his stats look good than Oakland. And being that the deal is short and cheap, Billy Beane has to be hoping he can flip Colon for a somewhat useful prospect at the deadline to a contender who needs a veteran arm. And at the very least, this gives the A’s one more guy to run out there every 5th day so they don’t rush Jarrod Parker or Brad Peacock. Those two will still be fighting for rotation spots in spring training, but unless they prove they are clearly ready, they should be Sacramento bound to start the season.

So here we are mid-January and the 2012 A’s are taking shape. There is still the matter of only four outfielders on the 40-man but I’m sure that will be addressed in the coming weeks.

And now Andrew Bailey is gone.

(And so is Sweeney, but I don’t really count him, just like I didn’t really count Craig Breslow.)

After dealing both Trevor Cahill and Gio Gonzalez, the next expected A out the door was Bailey, and the A’s sent him and Sweeney to Boston for three players this week.

I think the “haul” here was pretty underwhelming, but I’m not sure the A’s really could have got more if they waited until July. What would have happened if he got injured? Then you get nothing at all for him. I think this had to be a concern for Beane and company and why they acted now.

So in return, we get outfielder Josh Reddick. He’s actually got some major league experience and should be an everyday player from the get-go. He’s not an impact bat by any means, but he’ll probably be one of the better performers on the 2012 Oakland A’s, though that is not saying much. In 278 plate appearances last season, he had a line of .280/.327/.457. That is at least better than Sweeney in the slugging department.

Two prospects come back as well, though both guys are very young, low minors players. Miles Head is a 20-year-old first baseman that the A’s are going to try to convert to third base. He supposedly has good potential as a hitter but suspect defense. Raul Alcantara is a 19-year-old starting pitcher who the A’s apparently love. Scouting reports are mixed but he sounds like a high ceiling guy.

So as the 2012 A’s get more and more anonymous, we shall await the next move… which is hopefully a San Jose announcement.

After the A’s traded away Trevor Cahill two weeks ago, it was pretty obvious who was next, and that was All-Star lefty Gio Gonzalez. The A’s made it official yesterday, sending Gio to the Washington Nationals in exchange for four prospects.

As much as I like Gio, I understand the need to trade guys who are at their peak value, especially when the other teams in your division are throwing their money around at the best players in the league, and the only way you can compete is to load up on prospects and hope they bring success in a few years. Unfortunately it means guys you like end up leaving. It was the case with Nick Swisher, who was traded for a package that included Gio, and now four years later, it’s Gio who is out the door.

It does make me feel good to hear that most of the analysis about this trade are in Oakland’s favor. Many pundits who specialize in prospect rankings are in agreement that the A’s now top prospect came in this trade, a 19-year-old righty starting pitcher named A.J. Cole. He’ll be a few years away but scouts say he’s got the potential to be a top-of-the-rotation starter.

The A’s also picked up two more starting pitchers that we will probably see in green and gold sometime in 2012. One of them is 23-year-old righty Brad Peacock, who impressed in two starts in the majors in a September callup, and who posted an impressive 2.39 ERA and 0.99 WHIP over AA and AAA last season. Tom Milone is a lefty that is getting Dallas Braden comparisons, as he doesn’t throw hard, but he features an excellent changeup and pinpoint control that produced eye-popping strikeout to walk ratios in the minors. He’ll be 25 by the time the season starts, and he too had some starts in the majors at the end of last season and produced a 3.81 ERA and 1.23 WHIP.

We got a bat in this trade too, and it’s an intriguing one. Derek Norris is a catcher who hit only .210 in AA last season. Sounds like crap, right? Not really. He’s still expected to be a major league regular, with plus power and an excellent eye for the strike zone. Despite the low batting average, he still hit 20 home runs, got on base at a .367 clip and had an OPS of .817.

Needless to say I feel quite a bit better about this trade than the Cahill trade, but I still wanted to see more than one bat come back. But maybe we can get some bats when we flip Peacock for three prospects after an All Star season in 2015…

Well the first two A’s of the offseason has been traded, and I don’t expect them to be the last. Now that the target date for trying to be good is 2015, the A’s are looking at moving some guys and being crappy for awhile.

Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow are Arizona-bound. In return, the A’s get the Diamondbacks top pitching prospect, Jarrod Parker, along with outfielder Collin Cowgill and right-handed pitcher Ryan Cook.

I see Cahill as a bit of an unknown at this point, as he struggled quite a bit through much of last season, after putting up some great numbers in 2010. He’s still a pitcher with big league experience though, and signed to a team-friendly contract, so it’s obvious why the Diamondbacks want him. He seems like a guy who will play well in the NL West. And Breslow is Breslow – I don’t really care.

Jarrod Parker is a guy I remember hearing about when the Dan Haren trade went down back in 2008. A lot of people thought the A’s should have gotten him over Brett Anderson in that deal, but now it doesn’t matter because they have them both. And, the two pitchers have got something else in common – they’ve both had Tommy John surgery. Parker had his in 2010 and had a nice bounce-back season last year so should be fine going forward. Anderson is still recovering so we probably won’t know what he’s like post-surgery until 2013 or so.

Sounds like the A’s see Collin Cowgill as a center fielder – he’s played there quite a bit in the minors so that sounds fine, as the A’s definitely need a center fielder. I did see a lot of Cowgill hate from A’s fans on Twitter this afternoon, and I didn’t really get it. He hit .354 and had an OBP of .430 in AAA last season and stole a bunch of bases. I know that’s doesn’t necessarily equal big-league success but he could be a useful player.

And Cook is a reliever, so meh.

I’m not really sure what to think of this and probably won’t until we get into the season a ways and see what some of these guys can do for the A’s against actual big-league competition. First glance though, it feels a bit underwhelming. I would have thought the A’s could’ve gotten someone with more upside in addition to Parker. What the A’s really, really, really need big time is impact bats, and Collin Cowgill is not that. So, meh.

The A.L. West just got a lot better today as the best hitter in the whole league signed with the Angels.

They didn’t stop there either, as they added lefty starter C.J. Wilson.

The A’s already had to share a division with the two-time American League champion Rangers. Now they have to deal with Pujols on a team that has four top-of-the-rotation type starters? Uncle.

The A’s have been irrelevant for awhile. Now it’s definitely going to be awhile longer. At we’ve had time to get used to it.

I have to wonder, though, if this will help the A’s in their quest to move to San Jose. It should be clear to MLB now that there is no way the A’s can compete with the Rangers and the Angels (and the Mariners too, if they start being smart) while still being housed in the Raiders’ stadium. If MLB cares about the A’s actually having a chance to compete, they should allow the A’s to move.