A Tale of Two Brandons: Allen and Weeden

Here's a riddle. Brandon Allen, a recent waiver pickup for the eternally-lovable Tampa Bay Rays, is at the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning. His team is down one run, with B.J. Upton at first base. He has big-time power.

Opposing Allen is inconsistent Angels closer Jordan Walden, trying to protect his team's one-run lead and nail down the win to avoid a sweep. The Angels are currently in the midst of a nightmarish start to the season in which everything imaginable is going wrong.

Taking all this into account...what is the result of the Allen vs. Walden at-bat? The answer lies below in video form:

That was perhaps the most predictable ending in baseball history.

On a different note: with the 22nd overall pick in Thursday night's NFL Draft, the Cleveland Brows selected Brandon Weeden, a 28-year-old quarterback out of Oklahoma State. Remarkably, Weeden was also selected in the second round of the Major League Baseball Draft--ten years ago. He was picked by the New York Yankees 71st overall, as a right-handed pitcher, in the somewhat-famous "Moneyball draft" of 2002. Weeden's baseball career obviously never took off, but after the 2003 season, he was part of the trade that brought Kevin Brown to New York.

Yes, Cleveland: your quarterback of the future was traded for Kevin Brown almost a decade ago. Let that sink in.

This case also highlights the incredible randomness of the 50-round lottery known as the MLB Draft compared to the NFL's version. After the first 60 picks or so, perhaps one player per round becomes a useful major leaguer. Some random observations from 2002 to illustrate these points:

• The Yankees selected Weeden nine picks before the Tigers drafted future-Yankees-center-fielder Curtis Granderson and fifteen rounds before the Dodgers grabbed future-Yankees-catcher Russell Martin.
• Like all MLB drafts, the middle rounds were almost completely barren of MLB talent...except, oddly, for the 40th round, in which Hunter Pence was taken by the Brewers, Matt Garza was taken by the Rockies, and Jonathan Papelbon was taken by the A's. Obviously, none of those players signed with those teams, and all went to college before reentering the draft later.
• Talk about random: the first three high school pitchers (a notoriously risky commodity) selected were Chris Gruler, Adam Loewen, and Clint Everts, none of whom amounted to anything. The next four high school pitchers taken? Zack Greinke, Scott Kazmir, Cole Hamels, and Matt Cain.
• Want to know why the Pirates have been so bad for so long? With the first overall pick, in a draft that included the high school pitchers mentioned above, plus Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, B.J. Upton, Brian McCann, Jon Lester, Josh Johnson, Curtis Granderson, and Nick Swisher, the Pirates selected... Bryan Bullington. It has been a long trek through the desert for Pittsburgh.