There’s been a lot of action surrounding the guilty plea entered today by former Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa, in which he admitted to certain charges brought against him for an improper accessing of the Astros’ “Ground Control” database. The complaint against Correa revealed several important alleged details, as did his statements today in open court.
In particular, Correa suggested — when asked by the judge — that he had found proprietary Cardinals’ information in the Astros’ systems. (David Barron of the Houston Chronicle was on hand, and his Twitter timeline is chock full of information on the proceedings.) Of course, former Cardinals executive Jeff Luhnow moved from St. Louis to become the Astros’ general manager, which Correa says was the cause for his look into the competitor’s databases.
The Astros have issued a statement in response. Per Houston general counsel Giles Kibbe, the club is withholding comment on “the details” at present. But he did make clear that Houston “refute[s] Mr. Correa’s statement that our database contained any information that was proprietary to the St. Louis Cardinals.”
In theory, then, there are still at least two open matters for the league to consider: first, any punishment and/or compensation relating to the breach by a (now-former) Cardinals employee. And second, the question whether the St. Louis organization actually was harmed as well.
The league has made clear that it is not prepared to act on either or both subjects at present. Per a league statement:
“Major League Baseball appreciates the efforts of federal law enforcement authorities in investigating the illegal breach of the Astros’ baseball operations database, and identifying the perpetrator of this crime. We anticipate that the authorities will share with us the results of their investigation at the appropriate time, and we will determine what further actions to take after receiving all the relevant information.”
While it remains to be seen how things will proceed, preliminary indications are that a quiet resolution is more likely than a public battle between the organizations. Kibbe’s statement on behalf of the ’Stros also hinted as much. “We have a great amount of respect for Bill DeWitt and the Cardinals organization,” he said. “And, we are confident that Commissioner Manfred will guide MLB through this process in the best way possible.”
MLB’s constitution specifically provides that teams may not file suit against one another, but must instead take any disputes to the commissioner as an arbitrator. (H/t to Nathaniel Grow of Fangraphs.) While a lawsuit could still theoretically be pursued, if Houston were to identify some loophole that it might argue for as an exemption from the arbitration requirement, that seems as unlikely to succeed as it is to be attempted.
Per the proceedings and the complaint (via Wendy Thurm, on Twitter), the government alleged as a result of its investigation that Correa had done quite a bit of significant snooping. According to the government, he accessed the system at least during the time frame of March of 2013 through June of 2014, and also made his way into the e-mail accounts of two unnamed (but easily assumed) “victims” — executives who had moved from the Cardinals to the Astros.
Among other things, Correa is alleged in May of 2013 to have peaked at the Astros’ ranking of 2013 draft-eligible players; large swaths of other draft-related scouting and assessment data; scouting information relating to the Cardinals’ system; and logs of Houston’s trade talks. He is said to have accessed the system again during the draft. And he allegedly went back to check the trade notes on the morning of the 2013 trade deadline.
While the Astros made significant changes to their database security after the Ground Control system was publicized early in 2014, Correa was allegedly able to find the new password information because of the aforementioned email access. He is charged with again checking in on the team’s trade logs, draft information, international evaluations, and other information in March of 2014.
Ultimately, of course, whether or not Correa was able to find the Cardinals’ information on the Astros’ system, that was never going to be much of a legal defense, as prosecutor Kenneth Magidson explained to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As reported earlier today, Correa pleaded guilty to five (out of twelve total) counts of unauthorized access to computer information, which come with a maximum of up to a five-year prison sentence, plus fines and restitution. While sentencing will not take place until April 11th, Goold explains that Correa will likely receive three or four years of jail time. That’s due to the terms of the plea deal, under which Correa acknowledged that the value of the information taken was around $1.7MM and that he had attempted to conceal his identity in accessing the system.
If the draft rankings and scouting reports were accessed, even if they weren’t being used, the cardinals should lose an unprotected first round pick to the Astros.
If you mean the Cardinals pick should go directly to the Astros, that would be a bit harsh. I could see the Cards losing the pick, but there’s little justification to say the Astros should get a pick back.
How about they permanently lose the free competitive balance pick they get every year for being a “small market” team.
They don’t get one every year. But if it would eliminate the whining about it, I’d be for this.
Every year? Well what happened to the pick in the 2015 Draft? Shooting off at the mouth…..typical Yank.
I get what your saying but this Is more of a legal matter and he is facing actual jail time. I don’t think the organization should be punished for the actions of a lone individual. The fact that he may go to jail for 3-4 years is punishment enough IMO. Now if he was looking at a slap on the wrist then I would be more inclined to hold the organization responsible.
Do you really think the St. Louis Cardinals didn’t take advantage of the information the found? They certainly benefited from it in some capacity. And if anyone thinks this guy was the only one who knew and kept it to himself…. Come on. I’d say hacking in right before the draft and the morning of July 31st screams it was all over the Cardinal front office.
And what about the information the Astros had that belonged to the Cardinals? I’m not defending Correa, but you aren’t even addressing the entire situation.
I don’t think the Astros had anything other than what Luhnow brought with him. Of course he would have knowledge of the Cardinals he worked for them… Just like the Brewers now have knowledge of the Astros. Other than that I think the claim is BS.
The Cards won’t and should not lose a pick to the Astros directly. It seems likely that Luhnow took info with him when he went to Astros and Correa illegally accessed Astros data. I think they should investigate Luhnow. Ultimately, a fine is what should happen. It should be larger than 1.7 mil to show the seriousness of this type of crime. The real incentive not to do this, will be when Correa serves jail time.
So Corrrea is scouting director. Where does he get the expertise to hack into the Astros system using masking software?. Seems likely, some IT professional was working with him.
Anyways, the information he had access to was valued at 1.7 million. Multiply that by 4-5 for a penalty and thats about the value of a 1st round draft pick. Seems appropriate punishment.
Correas allegation is unproven. If in fact he did find evidence during the course of his intrusions for a year or so, one would expect he reported to his bosses and they would file a complaint with MLB. Otherwise, what was the point of accessing the Astros system to find out of they were using proprietary information and then doing nothing when you found out they were. Pretty sketchy.
I suppose you’re the type of genius that would call the cops if someone stole your weed, aren’t you?
Templeton, You sure got him on that one! Tough guy
Maybe it’s something as stupidly simple as Ludnow using the same login/password in multiple places?
What a cheating POS this dude is. Of course he denied it too. Let his @ss rot in jail.
Someone is obviously an Astros fan…
And someone is obviously a Braves fan…
I think he’s just being thrown under the bus. Something about a Scouting Director doing something this sophisticated strikes me as full of it. I think this goes much, much higher, and I don’t know why it has to be limited to the Astros.
You’re really reaching here. He wasn’t scouting director when this took place. He worked under Lunhow in St. Louis.
Unless you’re wearing a tin foil hat, it’s pretty obvious that Correa felt he was wronged by Lunhow and went looking into it. When he found what he was expecting, he went for revenge by releasing some of the data.
It’s wrong and he should absolutely be punished. If the FBI finds that this went further up and was used as an advantage, then everyone involved should be punished by law and by the league. But there’s zero evidence of it being anything more.
I should say, zero evidence that has been released. There could be more that we don’t know about yet. But from the facts we do know, it appears Correa was out for revenge.
I highly doubt that Luhnow did not have Cardinals information on his computers. He helped Astros create a database similar to what the Cardinals had.
Yes, that’s what I started thinking as I was reading this. I mean, unless he has a background in computer science or something, but it does seem
a little fishy.
I am almost certain…..I mean I cannot 100% sure…..that when someone pleads guilty they are not denying what they did. The guy even took a plea deal.
I swear, every time I see the name Chris Correa, I read it as Carlos Correa and then I think, why is Carlos Correa trying to hack Into his own team’s computers?
Jail time? For this? Just fire him and ban him from baseball.
? It’s corporate espionage in a multi billion dollar industry. Why would you think it would not involve jail time?
If he “Found” that Luhnow stole something why didn’t he turn it over? I do think he is falling on the sword for the higher ups.
Ummm seriously? Maybe because what he was doing was Illegal no matter what he found.
That’d be like someone breaking into your house and finding out you have stolen items in your house.. You think they’re going to call the police on you?
I mean He got busted, so what is there to hide now if he found something, right?? Why isn’t he throwing the Astros under the bus?? C’mon now!
Oh I agree with that. We don’t know what he has or hasn’t confessed to finding. That’s why MLB is holding off on both sides of this.
Maybe he was afraid that they would ask him what he was doing snooping around in the Astros’ system in the first place. Or perhaps he did turn it over, but they got rid of it later on before the authorities got involved?
And yes, this whole situation seems a little odd.
From what I read when this story first broke, Luhnow didn’t bother to change his password after he went to Houston. I’m not in IT but it wouldn’t be much of a hack if this guy was that lax with his system security.
I touched upon that in this post, but all the details on that aspect of the story are in the complaint. (I say this with the caveat that a complaint contains allegations.)
Baseballrat….. I agree with you. Check his life style out a few years after he gets out of jail. Bet he’s very wealthy then. Probably more were involved in this embarrassing act against the Cardinals
Come on Jeff. To give any credence at all to the accusations of this criminal is ridiculous.
He systematically accessed scouting and all information on the Astros data base for almost a year and a half.
His timing suggests he was clearly looking to use this information to gain advantages in the amateur draft and near the trading deadline. It is also clear it is not just the Astros who had private communications stolen, but numerous other teams.
The unanswered question should be who else was aware in the organization of this theft. This was one of the right hand men of the general manager.
I’m certainly not giving credence to the idea. I’m passing on exactly what has been said. As I noted here (and mentioned in this morning’s story, which I contributed to but appears under Steve’s name), the notion that you’re benevolently breaking into a computer system is legal hogwash.
Only reason I mentioned that element of the story at all is that there’s enough smoke that the Astros denied it. Whether or not Correa ever releases whatever he claims substantiates his statements remains to be seen, but it’s relevant to note, and could bear on how any disciplinary proceedings unfold.
The thing is, I havent seen any Astros fans insulting or bad-mouthing the Cardinals ever since this happened. Its been fans of other teams (specifically NL Central teams) hating on them.
The Cubs (whom I know you are referring to) played 19 regular season games against the Cardinals and 4 in the postseason.
Are you really whining about the move the Cubs made in the offseason and the results of 2015?
Houston did not play the Cardinals in 2015. Do you think that might help explain the difference between the concern of the two clubs at this point? When Houston was in the NL Central, I can see the argument, but now that they are no longer rivals? Your argument doesn’t hold. This is an obvious case of a front office cheating to try to gain an edge when it was clear that the talent left for “clearer waters.”
I’m sorry that after so many years of domination over your red=headed step-child sibling are starting to reverse course. But it’s really not reason for the organization-wide level of paranoia that has gone through the roof over the last few months.
For so many years, ethics were the central point in the Cardinal organization (i.e., “The Cardinal Way”).. That was obliterated in the last couple years.. I’m sorry to break it to you that it will take a long time to clear this black mark.
While everyone is assuming the top Cardinals leadership put him up to this to steal information, there is one important piece people have forgotten. This all came to light because the information was leaked to an Internet website (think it was Deadspin).
Why would Cardinals leadership be leaking this information to deadspin if they were stealing it to use it for a competitive advantage.
The more accurate situation was either this guy was trying to retaliate against Luhnow for not hiring him or he was retaliating because he had concerns about how Luhnow was handling information he collected.
Please explain to me how stealing this information for a competitive advantage then giving it to deadspin makes any sense? This was leaving a paper trail that no team would leave if they were involved.
Don’t get me wrong, the Cardinals are responsible for their employee’s actions even if they had no knowledge of the actions. But the entire senior management was involved to get a competitive advantage makes no sense when the entire picture is viewed including the Deadspin piece.
Could be after 2 years they realized they had the information or didn’t think his draft strategy fit the “Cardinal way”. So instead of continuing to monitor. They released the info on dead spin to put a cloud of doubt over Lunhow as retaliation.
The information was published by deadspin around two years ago, so there was no sitting on it. Deadspin ran it back when the hacking happened. That’s how people found out about it. Deadspin ran a story about an Astros trade offer to Baltimore. Off memory it was Bud Norris for Gaussman.
Just looked it up, Deadspin ran the story 6/30/2014. This is how Houston found out about it and asked MLB to investigate, which brought the FBI into it.
And the initial breech was in 2013 so your argument is invalid.
Love to hear what Cardinals info he found in the ‘groung control’ database? If I were the judge and I heard that password information was sent via email to several users of the database I would display this on a monitor:
“I absolutely know about password hygiene and best practices. I’m certainly aware of how important passwords are, as well as of the importance of keeping them updated. A lot of my job in baseball, as it was in high tech, is to make sure that intellectual property is protected. I take that seriously and hold myself and those who work for me to a very high standard.”
I then kick everybody out of my courtroom and tell the Astro’s you got what you deserved – you guys take ball and mitt and go home and play fair. We won’t waste time on a game that you billionaires are trying to ruin.
I doubt he had the skill set to hack into another company. As a statistical professional I find it telling that St. Louis has drafted so well for many years. Knowing the emphasis and value that a team or teams place on potential draftees can influence when you would draft an individual. For example, if St. Louis know ahead of time that Houston was going to draft a player in the fourth round if available then St. Louis could draft that individual in the third round. Not necessarily to keep Houston from getting the player but due to the talent of the player. And that player St. Louis had rated for the third round and Houston has as a tenth rounder would mean that St. Louis could wait to draft that(in their eyes) third round talent in a later round. And why stop at Houston. Why not try to access all teams? Let’s face it. St. Louis has drafted extremely well in the last few years and always have talent ready to step in.
Now back to my first point about skillset. Like I stated before, it is doubtful that he could have done this without assistance. I’m sure any record of the possible assistance that I believe he had is well hidden for now. What will be interesting is to see how well St. Louis does without the insider information in future drafts compared to other teams and their previous drafts.
And you don’t think one of the reasons they drafted so well is because they had ALL of the scouting information of the Astros?! You are talking thousands of man hours tidied up into reports to easily go over. In other words you have effectively doubled your scouting department for free. No wonder you drafted well….. Which is why they should get slapped hard by MLB.
Cardinals should get slapped bigtime. Give a pick to the Astros, lose a competitive pick, fines, etc. They fired the guy but he did it for over 2 years. I still don’t buy he acted alone. He is going to jail… but it is still a huge black eye for the Cardinals.
I love it when everyone thinks the cards are a world class org and don’t do anything wrong and then this happens. I’m all for losing the pick but it shldnt go to the astros