Murphy: Phillies fans, consider the Marlins

If you're into macro processes and you're a Phillies fan, the Marlins are an interesting team.

Really, the whole National League East is interesting, with the Nationals on pace for 96 wins, the Marlins for 88, and the Mets for 87. The state of the division is strong, and that's not going to help matters as the Phillies continue to claw their way back to relevance. (For what it's worth, the last time the NL East had three teams finish with a winning record was 2009, when the Phillies won 93, the Marlins won 87, and the Braves won 86. That was the third straight year three teams finished with at least 84 wins.)

It's the Marlins, though, who are worth a closer look, because their trajectory over the last decade has looked a little bit like a scaled-down version of the Phillies'. From 2003-10, they won 80 games six times, including 84, 87, and 80 in 2008-10. Their 2011 was like the Phillies' 2012, and in 2012 and 2013, they bottomed out. This year, they're 51-42 and looking like a legitimate threat to hang around the periphery of the playoff race.

The Marlins have outperformed their run differential: Bill James' pythagorean formula has them as a 47-46 team. Yet even that represents an outperformance of preseason expectations. And when you look at the Marlins' roster, you see why the Phillies' process might end up being a bit longer than the one Miami has orchestrated.

In Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton, the Marlins have three outfielders under age 27, all of whom are under club control through at least the 2019 season (Stanton through 2020 and Yelich through 2021). Ozuna and Stanton are the kinds of players the Phillies spent a decade investing heavily in: raw hitters with big upside who  could generate a huge payoff down the road. Both have been in the Marlins system since 2008. The difference is, they've paid off.

Meanwhile, Miami proceeded to draft a guy such as Yelich four picks before the Phillies selected Jesse Biddle (in 2010), and acquiring shortstop Derek Dietrich in a trade for Yunel Escobar with the Rays, who originally drafted Dietrich in the second round in 2010, two picks after the Phillies selected Perci Garner.

That 2010 draft is interesting to look at. The Blue Jays selected Noah Syndergaard 11 picks after the Phillies drafted Biddle (this was after Toronto had already selected current staff ace Aaron Sanchez seven picks after Biddle). Also selected within the next round after Biddle were Tigers third baseman Nick Castellanos (.868 OPS, 17 HRs) and Mariners starter Taijuan Walker (3.66 ERA in 86 innings). It isn't a coincidence that all the teams mentioned thus far are in the playoff hunt.

That's not to suggest the Phillies were the unquestioned buffoons of that year's draft: Of the 15 players selected immediately after Biddle, only five have reached the majors, and Syndergaard and Sanchez are the only two with at least 1 career win above replacement. On the flip side, these are the kinds of picks that enable teams to reload rather than dynamite the whole place and start from scratch.

The MLB draft is in large part a numbers game: You make a lot of sound, educated guesses and hope that one or two pay off. There's certainly a case to be made that the Phillies weren't simply unlucky, and that their guesses were not all that educated, given the high degree of risk they often assumed with their penchant for raw, high-upside high schoolers.

There's not much sense in regurgitating that case here. This isn't a blame game, just a look at why the Phillies process might end up being longer than the one the Mets and Marlins have used. In 2011, the Phillies took Larry Greene a pick before Jackie Bradley Jr., four picks before current Tigers breakout star Michael Fulmer, and five picks before Rockies rookie sensation Trevor Story (.905 OPS, 23 HRs at the age of 23). That same year, they took Roman Quinn in the second round five picks before the Marlins selected starter Adam Conley, who has a 3.61 ERA and has averaged 8.9 K/9 in 104 2/3 innings over 19 starts this year.

Take any one of the players mentioned above, particularly one of the hitters, and add him to Aaron Nola, Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrera and the Phillies farm system, and think about how that changes the complexion of the current rebuild. I'm not sure where, exactly, the Phillies are in their process compared to the Marlins. But it's interesting to think about.