During Mike Bordick's career, he had a .982 fielding percentage and set the Major League Baseball record for most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop.
While the statistics show it probably would have been unwise to bet against Bordick making a mistake during a game, a new company backed by the former Baltimore Oriole is developing an app to assist sports bettors in making such decisions.
Fanalysts, founded by brothers Spencer and Bradley Kronthal, aims to give bettors more control of sports analytics by giving them the ability to create their own betting metrics. Most sports bettors right now rely on the talking heads on TV or radio and algorithms they know very little about when making picks.
The company got started with $460,000 in pre-seed funding and is now raising $1.2 million for a seed round. Fanalysts plans to launch its subscription-based product early next year.
Bordick, who played 14 years in the majors including six with the Orioles, was an early investor in Fanalysts and is now serving as a sports business adviser. He said he's using the connections he developed during his career and post-playing days to help attract investors and grow the business.
"It's a really interesting company and I'm excited to be a part of it," Bordick said in an interview with the BBJ. "I think ultimately all bettors, and I'm not an avid bettor by any means, but all bettors want more control. This certainly gives them the utmost control."
By using Fanalysts' website, bettors can plug in a quarterback's passer rating or look at the Ravens' chances of winning a game in December to determine their pick for a football game. For a baseball game, they could look at how often a team bunts with a runner on third base at the end of the game. The options are endless.
Bordick admitted being involved with sports betting is "pretty bizarre" for him as a former professional baseball player but it shows how the times have changed. Pete Rose, the all-time leader in career hits, had recently been banned from baseball when Bordick made his major league debut in 1990. The sport was still trying to ensure it was as distanced from gambling as possible decades after the "Black Sox scandal," when several players on the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.
As a minor leaguer, Bordick was exposed to gambling when he played in Reno, Nevada, and Las Vegas. While he had his fun and recalls calling his dad to ask him to send him some more money, Bordick said he shied away from gambling because of the optics around the relationship between betting and baseball.
"I guess we're all hypocrites now when it comes to that because Major League Baseball is sponsored by DraftKings and they have betting before games and stuff," Bordick said. "Ultimately when they let Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame, that's when they'll really let the guard down and say it's alright now."
Bordick originally got involved with Fanalysts through his connection to Brad Kronthal. They worked together while Bordick was a color analyst for MASN. Fanalysts started as an algorithm to help baseball scouts evaluate players. Bordick joined the company to help the Kronthal brothers get meetings with teams.
Even though analytics has become much more prevalent in baseball over the last decade, they found that teams were not interested in "outsiders" coming in because the teams were protective of the systems and information they were already using.
"Everybody kind of shunned it away and we were scratching our heads because we thought it was going to be a really unique tool," Bordick said.
Like any good entrepreneur, the Kronthals pivoted. Sports betting had become legalized and was starting to be implemented in states across the U.S., so they discovered new ways for their analytics system to be utilized.
Coding for Fanalysts' website and app is underway right now so it can launch next year. The company also continues to hire developers and coders.
Bordick believes Fanalysts has a big opportunity as the U.S. sports betting market continues to grow. The first sportsbooks in Maryland opened last week at the state's casinos.
"I think sports betting throughout the country is just scratching the surface right now," Bordick said. "We see it's on ads all the time and only half the country is legal right now. I think it's still in the newbie stages and the growth is really unlimited in our eyes right now."
Sports bettors will be able to access Fanalysts' website and app by paying for a monthly subscription. The model will be tiered so users gain access to more tools and content by spending more money.
