Handigraphs
What It Is, Traction & What Would Have To Be True
Handigraphs is a subscription baseball-betting research tool “by and for baseball fans.” It aggregates advanced baseball metrics into a clean, color-coded interface (“blue is bad, red is good”) built to make an intimidating data landscape usable for prop bettors. Co-founders Adam Rosenberg (PR/brand/marketing) and CJ Buskey met in the Outlier Discord and launched it as a summer-2025 side project; their podcast, Dads Bet Baseball, doubles as the marketing engine. The signature feature is a proprietary plate-appearance metric — the 30/60/90 PA split (hitter performance over rolling windows and vs pitcher handedness) — alongside AI per-game breakdowns, a daily “morning edge report,” and a natural-language query agent.
What Would Have To Be True (to ENGAGE)
- ▮Break the single-sport ceiling: credible multi-sport expansion to escape baseball-only TAM and seasonality — the structural cap on the business as it stands.
- ▮Quantified scale: real subscriber and revenue numbers behind the “sticky / near-zero churn” claim — proof the retention holds beyond a small core.
- ▮Investable structure: evidence the company is (and wants to be) a venture-backable business — a round, a team beyond the two founders, technical depth — not a bootstrapped community side-project.
- ▮Defensibility: proof the 30/60/90 metric + UX is more than a replicable feature larger tools (Outlier, Dimers, FanGraphs) can copy.
Assessment: a likeable, well-executed niche product with real stickiness and honest, transparent analytics — better on product integrity than most consumer picks apps. But it is early, narrow, small and unfunded; as a venture it has to prove it can broaden beyond baseball and scale beyond a passionate core.
Weighted Screen, Legend & Action Band
Weighted against the six-criterion rubric. Cells left-aligned; ball + label; risk-resolved inverted (higher = fewer unresolved risks). Calibration: stickiness and product transparency credited; the baseball-only/scale/funding constraints kept honest.
| Criterion | Weight | Rating | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Differentiation / product | 20% | ◑ MODERATE (2) | A transparent, specific proprietary metric (30/60/90 PA split) + clean color-coded UX + AI features is a real, honest wedge — more defensible-feeling than a black-box score. But baseball-only and the approach is replicable in a crowded field. |
| Sector fit | 20% | ◑ MODERATE (2) | Player props is the fastest-growing OSB segment (in-thesis), but this is a B2C consumer-tool and baseball-ONLY — a TAM + seasonality constraint. Clusters with Outlier/Swish/PlayerProps, not the B2B-data lane. |
| Traction / validation | 16% | ◑ MODERATE (2) | Genuine stickiness signal (self-reported near-zero churn) + paying subscribers + content/community GTM (podcast). But small, unquantified, and very early (launched summer 2025). |
| Founder / team | 12% | ◑ MODERATE (2) | Marketing/PR/content-savvy, domain-passionate founders with a built-in distribution engine (podcast); community-native origin. Not a technical/data/institutional pedigree; two-person side-project team. |
| Moat | 16% | ◔ WEAK (1) | Affirmative weakness: the metric is replicable, the product baseball-only and small, the category crowded with bigger tools (Outlier, Dimers, FanGraphs); stickiness is real but narrow, and little defends the product at scale. |
| Risk resolved (inverted) | 16% | ◑ MODERATE (2) | Cleaner than the black-box/crypto names — transparent product, lower harm profile, sold to bettors who play at licensed books. Unresolved: baseball-only seasonality, tiny scale, bootstrapped (investability), crowded competition. No fatal flaw. |
| WEIGHTED FIT SCORE | 100% | 1.84 / 4.0 | Action band → MONITOR (low) |
MONITOR — 1.84 / 4.0, low end. Five Moderate criteria and a Weak moat net to a low-MONITOR. It sits below PlayerProps.ai (2.04) mainly on sector breadth (baseball-only) and distribution/moat, partly offset by a cleaner, more transparent product. A promising bottom-of-cohort watch.
Landscape & Moat Stress-Test
Handigraphs sits in the crowded consumer baseball/prop bettor-tools field, against both betting-native tools and free sabermetrics sources.
| Player | Focus | Scale | Read vs Handigraphs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handigraphs | baseball-only prop research (B2C) | bootstrapped, early | transparent metric + sticky core; narrow + small |
| Outlier | multi-sport research dashboard | seed-stage, 4.9★ | where the founders met; broader; screened MONITOR 2.68 |
| PlayerProps.ai | multi-sport props + community | bootstrapped, larger community | bigger distribution; screened MONITOR 2.04 |
| Dimers | multi-sport predictive tools | Cipher Sports-owned | funded, broad, B2B+B2C |
| FanGraphs / Baseball Savant | baseball sabermetrics (free/paid) | established | the free data sources Handigraphs simplifies/repackages |
Moat Stress-Test
- ▮What is defensible? The retention/habit (near-zero churn) and the brand/community built through the podcast — real switching cost at the level of a loyal core.
- ▮What breaks it? A multi-sport incumbent (Outlier, Dimers) adding a comparable baseball view; the underlying metrics derive from public data (Statcast/FanGraphs) and are replicable.
- ▮The single-sport problem. Baseball-only means a hard TAM ceiling and seasonal revenue/engagement (the MLB offseason); multi-sport expansion is the make-or-break for scale.
- ▮Exit logic: the consumer bettor-tools consolidation (OddsJam→Gambling.com) suggests an audience/acqui-hire outcome is more plausible than a venture-scale standalone — reasonable, but modest.
Known vs Unknown
Observable vs diligence-dependent (absence of data = diligence item, not a mark against).
| Known (observable) | Unknown (diligence) |
|---|---|
| B2C MLB prop-research subscription; free + paid tiers | Subscriber count, revenue, ARPU — not disclosed |
| Signature 30/60/90 PA-split metric; AI breakdowns + NL agent | Data sourcing/cost; defensibility vs public data |
| Co-founders Rosenberg (PR/marketing) + Buskey; podcast GTM | Technical/data depth; team beyond two founders |
| Self-reported near-zero churn; “sticky,” daily-active | Verified retention, cohort scale, growth rate |
| No institutional funding surfaced; reads bootstrapped | Whether raising / venture-suitable; runway |
| Baseball-only; launched summer 2025 | Multi-sport roadmap; offseason revenue/engagement |
Strengths, Concerns & Verdict
VERDICT: MONITOR (1.84 / 4.0) — low end of the consumer bettor-tools cohort. Handigraphs is a likeable, well-built, sticky niche product with real product integrity — it earns a MONITOR (not a PASS) on the strength of its retention and transparency. But as a venture it is early, narrow and unfunded, and it clusters at the bottom of the consumer-tools group (Outlier 2.68, Swish 2.60, PlayerProps 2.04), below the B2B-data names. Flip to ENGAGE on: multi-sport expansion (breaking the baseball ceiling) + quantified, scaling subscribers/revenue + an institutional round signalling venture-suitability. Flip to PASS on: churn rising, growth stalling, or confirmation it is a bootstrapped lifestyle business not seeking venture capital. For now: track the retention and the multi-sport roadmap.
SOURCES & FLAGS. Profile from handigraphs.com (JS-rendered; content via search) and corroborating sources: BettingStartups feature & Podcast Ep.185 (23 Oct 2025), Business of Betting Podcast (E210), Dads Bet Baseball episodes, founder Instagram. Co-founders Adam Rosenberg (PR/marketing/brand; @heyrosenberg) and CJ Buskey; met in the Outlier Discord; launched summer 2025; signature 30/60/90 PA-split metric; AI breakdowns + morning edge report + NL agent; subscription (free + paid). “Near-zero churn,” “sticky,” “fast-growing” are FOUNDER-STATED, not independently verified; subscriber/revenue scale not disclosed (diligence items, not findings). No institutional funding round surfaced — absence is a diligence item; do not infer a raise. Competitor scale notes are illustrative; FanGraphs/Baseball Savant cited as underlying public-data context. All fit scores are OUR assessment against the fund rubric; no valuation expressed (early-stage screen).
DISCLAIMER. Internal screening note for informational purposes; not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation.
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