About

A front office, not a bazaar.

I started Card Bullpen the way good tools get started — as a collector trying to solve my own problem. The hobby is full of places to trade; it's short on something to help you decide. This is that something.

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Meet the GM

A collector first, a founder second.

Who built Card Bullpen?

Card Bullpen was built by Mark Murphy, a lifelong sports-card collector and the solo founder — a collector trying to solve his own problem. Building it solo means it ships when it's right, and there's no support queue between you and the founder.

I'm Mark Murphy — a lifelong collector and the solo founder of Card Bullpen. I've been the guy at the show working a deal with a price guide in one hand, sold comps in the other, and a gut feeling doing the math. That's a bad way to make a real-money call, and I made plenty of them that way.

Card Bullpen is the tool I wanted at the table — a front office for one. Building it solo means it ships when it's right, not when a deadline says so. It also means there's no support queue between us: write to [email protected] and the founder is the one who answers.

Why we built it

The story behind the front office.

Origin

I built Card Bullpen the way a lot of good tools get built: as a collector trying to solve my own problem. The hobby is full of places to buy and sell cards. What it's short on is something to help you decide — which prospect is worth chasing, whether a slab is worth the grading fee, what your floor should be when an offer comes in at a show. For me that meant juggling a price guide, a checklist site, a pop report, sold comps, and a spreadsheet of what I already owned. Card Bullpen pulls all of that into one place and runs it like a front office — scouting, valuation, and roster decisions under one roof — so the call is clear instead of a hunch.

See the four departments

The whole journey

Most tools pick a lane: simple enough for a beginner but shallow, or powerful for a dealer but impenetrable to everyone else. Card Bullpen is built to span the whole range — a guided, plain-language experience for someone just getting started, with the depth a serious collector or dealer needs sitting one tap away when they want it. One front office that grows with you, instead of a tool you outgrow.

Honest by design

The one thing we won't do is fake a number. A grade estimate comes as a range with its confidence shown. A value with no real comp behind it says so plainly. We'd rather tell you we're not sure than cost you money with false precision — because trust is the whole point of a tool you lean on to make decisions. In this hobby a wrong number is real money, so honesty isn't a feature here; it's the default.

What's next

Card Bullpen is in active development, launching in 2026. We're building the scouting, the identification, the decision support, and the collect-to-sell lifecycle into one app — and getting each piece right before it ships. If you want to be in the front office on day one, the waitlist is open.

— Mark

Where it's headed

The plan, in three phases.

No vapor and no hard promises — just the order we're building in.

In build
The four departments — scouting, evaluation, decisions, and inventory — coming together into one app.
At launch · 2026
Scout, identify, value, and make the buy-grade-hold-sell call — end to end, in one place.
After
Kept honest and current as the market moves. We'd rather ship it right than ship it loud.

Questions

Straight answers, by a collector.

Is Card Bullpen a marketplace?

No. There are already a hundred places to buy and sell — Card Bullpen is the part that's missing: the front office that helps you decide. It scouts, values, and works the buy-grade-hold-sell math, then you take that call wherever you trade.

Which sports does it cover?

Baseball, hockey, basketball, football, and soccer — including the minor-league, college, and junior pipelines, not just the big-league stars. The lookup is built to identify cards across all of them, so the sport you follow less closely isn't a blind spot.

Why won't it just show me one number?

Because a single number pretends to a certainty the market doesn't have. A card's worth is a range, set by real recent comps and the grade, so that's what you see — a floor, an ask, and an estimate with its confidence shown. When the comps are thin, it tells you, instead of faking precision that could cost you money.

Do I need to know the hobby to get value out of it?

No. New collectors get guided, plain-language flows that hide the jargon and just tell you what a card's worth and what to do next. The depth a serious collector or dealer wants is always one tap away — it doesn't get in your way until you ask for it.

Does it work for raw cards, or just graded slabs?

Both. Scan a raw card or a graded slab and it's identified the same way — player, year, set, parallel, serial — then valued against real, recent comps. Raw or slabbed, you get a read and a recommended next move. New to these terms? The collector glossary has plain-language definitions.

Is grading worth it for my card?

That's exactly the call Card Bullpen is built to make. It weighs the grading fee against the lift a higher grade is likely to add, using real comps — and when the math doesn't clear, it tells you to skip it, instead of dressing up a guess as a fact. You can walk the grading math yourself first.

What will Card Bullpen cost?

We haven't set pricing yet — that comes closer to launch. Joining the waitlist is free and there's no commitment; we'll share the details with the list before anyone is ever asked to pay.

When can I use it?

Card Bullpen is in active development, launching in 2026. We're building the scouting, identification, decision support, and collect-to-sell lifecycle into one app, and getting each piece right before it ships. Join the waitlist and we'll tell you the moment it's ready.

Still have a question? Email me — straight answer, no script.

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