There are 40 rounds in the annual MLB draft, and that is, relatively speaking, pretty short.

Yes, it's a marathon compared to the NBA's two rounds of drafting, and even the NFL's, three-day, seven-round event, but it used to be much longer and theoretically infinite, which teams extending the draft endlessly as they went back-and-forth making picks.

Nevertheless, 40 rounds of drafting never fails to get erroneous at one point or another. As The Big Lead notes, there are outliers -- Mike Piazza went in the 62 round back in 1988, and only as a favor to a friend -- but by and large, teams realize they're not missing much if they don't nail a pick in the later rounds.

And some, on the other hand, are so disenchanted with the value of those picks that they'd rather hand them out as favors rather than stick to the guidance of a draft board.

As this year's MLB draft his the mid-30 rounds, the Philadelphia Phillies abandoned all pretense of caring. With their pick in the 35th round, they chose Andrew Amaro, nephew to Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

Maybe that's a big deal for the University of Tampa outfielder. It's probably less exciting than last year, when Andrew Amaro was also drafted by the Phillies.

That was far from the end of the club nepotism. In the 38th round, the team selected the son of its Triple-A manager. In the 39th round, Philadelphia took the son of Mickey Morandini, a former Philly himself and the current manager of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

In the 40th and final round, the Phillies took the son of the team play-by-play broadcaster.

These are all baseball players, mind you, so it's not quite the same as drafting someone's grandmother or a broken sewing machine.

But the message is clear: That far down in the draft, everything's a crapshoot. Why not give the snowball's chance in hell to someone you know?

More: Giants Star Buster Posey Adds Catching Another No-Hitter To His Resume