Free money. That’s what the draft is. Free money.

That’s what I was thinking today while watching Chris Rolfe run up and down the field over in Scotland in a rather meaningless (and sometimes tedious) friendly. A United States Men’s National Team friendly. Rolfe is a rookie. A largely unheralded drafted rookie. The 29th pick overall; now a national team hopeful.

Chicago got him for nothing. And he’s not the only one they got. The majority of starters on the field during the Fire’s epic win over DC United a few weeks back were draftees, indeed three were rookies.

Jim Curtin was the old man in the back. From the 2003 draft were Logan Pause and Nate Jaqua. And then there were the rookies: Segares, Stewart, and Rolfe. Another rookie, Chad Barrett came in with twenty minutes to go.

A lot of teams waste draft picks, some quite famously go through entire seasons hardly playing their drafted rookies. It’s a foolish thing to do. It’s a lazy thing to do. It’s possible to build the core of an MLS team from the draft alone, but it takes some homework, some hard work, and more than a little luck.

And perhaps more than any other team in recent memory the Chicago Fire proved that this year. Yes, they have their veterans and their international acquisitions, but that’s not where team’s are built in MLS. Thiago is nice, but he’s not a team unto himself. Guys like Curtin and Pause and Segares make a team; the kind of guys you get in the draft make a team.

It is perhaps no coincidence that last week Chicago fell 1-0 to the New England Revolution - a team that on that day started six draftees, two of them rookies.

Free money. Don’t turn down free money.