Maybe Varitek wasn't as dumb as they're saying

Jason Varitek has taken a pounding this week; he's being raked over the coals for admitting that he didn't know a team would have to forfeit a first-round draft pick to obtain his services. Because that rule has almost eliminated any demand for his services -- teams wouldn't sign him to a contract for $20 and a free catcher's mitt if they still had to give up that draft pick -- Varitek's decision to forgo salary arbitration looks categorically stupid.

Critics of Varitek's decision, however, have the benefit of hindsight -- something Varitek didn't have when he originally made his decision.

Had Varitek accepted arbitration, he would have been locked into a one-year contract, albeit a one-year contract in the range of $10 million a year. For a fading catcher who will turn 37 years old in the first week of the 2009 season, a one-year deal might have been the last contract he ever signed. If he could have found a team to give him two years or, even better, two years with a vesting option, he would have had job security for an extra season or two. That, for someone like Varitek, is worth far more than money. The different between $5 million and $10 million is insignificant when you've already made $50 million in your career. The chance to have a contract and, thus, a job that's almost guaranteed -- that's worth far more.

Varitek is being criticized for failing to understand the system, for failing to understand that the forfeiture of a first-round draft pick is enough to scare teams away from him. The prevailing wisdom now is that Varitek -- and agent Scott Boras -- should have seen this coming.

But how could they?

Draft picks have gained value in recent years as more and more teams have embraced the strategies outlined in the book "Moneyball." Some teams have collected pending free agents like casino chips, waiting to cash them in for draft picks after the season. Other teams have opted not to trade their own pending free agents at the July deadline, feeling that the reward of two draft picks was worth more than any package of minor leaguers other teams could put together.

But the idea of forfeiting draft picks has never had as much of an impact as they've had with Varitek.

Skeptical? Look at the Type A free agents -- players for whom teams have forfeited first-round draft picks -- that have signed contracts in recent years:

2008
* Tom Glavine
* Torii Hunter
(Aaron Rowand, Francisco Cordero and Scott Linebrink also were Type A free agents, but as the Giants, Reds and White Sox were picking inside the top 15, their first-round picks were protected. Those teams surrendered second-round picks instead.)

2007
* Frank Catalanotto
* Carlos Lee
* Julio Lugo
* Jason Schmidt
* Gary Matthews Jr.
* Moises Alou
(Alfonso Soriano, Danys Baez, Rich Aurelia, Jeff Suppan, David Dellucci, Justin Speier, Woody Williams, Barry Zito, Roberto Hernandez, Dave Roberts and Chad Bradford all likewise were Type A free agents, but thanks either to the top 15 rule or the fact that each team can only surrender one first-round pick and thus ensuing free-agent signees cost them a second- or third-round pick, they didn't cost their teams a first-round pick.)

2006
* Billy Wagner
* Tom Gordon
* Esteban Loaiza (a Type B free agent)
* Paul Byrd (a Type B free agent)
* Jeff Weaver
* Johnny Damon
(Rafael Furcal, Ramon Hernandez, Matt Morris, Bob Howry, B.J. Ryan, Kyle Farnsworth, Scott Eyre, Tim Worrell and Bill Mueller were Type A free agents who turned out not to cost their team a first-round pick and instead a second- or third-round pick.)

Look at some of those names. Tom Glavine was about to turn 42 years old when he signed his contract. Tom Gordon had just turned 38 and would see his ERA jump by nearly a run after signed his. Frank Catalanotto was, well, Frank Catalanatto.

If Catalanotto -- who was nontendered by the Rangers four years earlier -- could get a contract as a Type A free agent, why couldn't Varitek? How could Varitek have guessed that the market for talented baseball players would go so far south that not one of 30 big-league teams would give up a first-round pick -- keeping in mind that first-round picks turn out to be busts in the ballpark of half the time -- for his services?

He took a risk, sure. But to claim that turning down arbitration in seach a two-year deal was colossally stupid is an unfair exercise in 20-20 hindsight. There's no way anyone could have known that teams suddenly would prize one draft pick more than they would value the experience Varitek would bring to a clubhouse and a pitching staff.