Major League Baseball is “unlikely” to issue any penalty to the Cardinals for the organization’s role in the Astros computer breach controversy prior to the upcoming amateur draft on June 9, Derrick Gould of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch hears from sources familiar with Commissioner Rob Manfred’s thoughts on the matter.
Manfred “has wide latitude” in issuing a punishment of some type to the Cards, and it has been heavily speculated that the penalty could include limitations on the team’s draft pool or perhaps simply taking away some picks altogether. The league has been unable to complete its investigation into the matter, however, since the sentencing hearing for former St. Louis scouting director Chris Correa has been postponed multiple times. The hearing for Correa (who pleaded guilty to charges) is currently scheduled to take place on July 5.
As Goold notes, the coming draft projects as a bountiful one for the Cardinals given the number of extra picks and spending at their disposal. St. Louis owns four of the first 70 picks and has a draft pool of just under $9.1MM, totals boosted by the compensation picks the club received when Jason Heyward and John Lackey left in free agency after rejecting qualifying offers. If a punishment isn’t issued in time for this draft, the Cards will have a chance to stock up on young talent now before possibly facing the loss of picks in the 2017 draft.
Speculation, but I wonder if MLB really wants to take picks from this year, since the Lackey and Heyward picks were “earned” through the compensation system.
I doubt that has a lot of bearing on how they handle front office employees committing federal crimes.
We aren’t arguing merits. This is professional sports. The management of the business is first and foremost. If MLB is given the option of penalizing SL this year or next, perhaps they would prefer next.
If the sport is to have any credibility, then acts like this have to be dealt with swiftly and without mercy. Otherwise, fans will see bias and other teams will see the lack of punishment as an encouragement to commit similar acts.
By giving the Cardinals more than a year advanced notice of punishment consisting of loss of drafts picks, they basically give the Cardinals a tactical advantage going into the upcoming offseason.
Knowing that they’re bound to lose draft picks, the Cardinals would see very little negative impact of signing free agents with a QO attached. If they know they’re to lose say their top two draft picks anyway, they’ll just sign two big free agents with QO attached and minimize their punishment.
i think MLB is being deliberate because Manfred’s seen what happens when Roger Goodell moves too quick
he moves to fast, the Union pushes back because, well, they’re the Union and they have to (the number of total draft picks is part of the CBA, the league can’t strip them from a team without the Union consenting). He waits until ‘all the facts are in’, and he’s got a much better chance of the Union signing off on a stiff punishment to ‘set precedent’
Agreed. It’s a good choice by him
Whats the likeliest package from cws for james shields?
If players can be punished without criminal charges and lose millions…. MLB better send a message about cheating to owners with St Louis.
They might. Once the legal justice system creaks out a verdict.
There already is a verdict, Guilty. Correa plead guilty. He is only waiting to be sentenced.
part of sentencing may involve him implicating others as part of the plea deal, or explaining in more detail what, exactly, he did wrong (the amount of times the data was accesses and when, for example… which would have huge implications on MLBs penalty). these things aren’t just as simple as the judge imposing a sentence, often times there’s conditions that must be met for the judge to accept the plea deal
I’m a Cardinal fan, and I’m surprised that a punishment hasn’t been handed out yet. I know that they are guilty, just waiting for that hammer to drop.
It’s the legal justice system. The Commish can’t do his job until the people who are allowed to use wiretaps finish with theirs.
MLB doesn’t believe in the whole speedy trial principle. They are going to be like the NCAA. By the time a punishment is finally handed out, the responsible individuals will have already moved on to other jobs and the new guys will be getting punished for no real reason other than their uniforms.
They are getting punished b/c the organization cheated. Anyone with common sense knows that it involves more than Correa. Organization cheated, so Organization should get punish no matter who is still there.
Someone hasn’t really looked into what happened.
Correa accessed it the day AFTER the draft and the day AFTER the trade deadline. That seems like a very strange time to gather your Intel if you’re looking for a competitive advantage, no?
“My team cheated but I’m going to blindly defend them anyways”
EXACTLY!
So ALL of the Reports/Trade Info he just kept to himself
I do applaud him for falling on the sword Alone
No he released it, didn’t you read it. Another move that would make absolutely no sense if you’re trying to use it as an advantage.
I debated not even clicking to see the comments here because I know there’s a lot of people with an opinion on what the punishment should be but very few that have actually followed the case. That leads to these silly conversations that you see here.
Let’s face it, you don’t like the Cardinals and you’re already prepared to not be happy with the punishment, whatever it is.
Stands up and applauds
the NFL has experimented with the whole ‘speedy justice’ principle… usually results in the ‘verdict’ getting thrown out by an arbitrator….
I thought this was common sense once the league issued the slot amounts and draft pools. They weren’t just going to throw it all out and start over a week before the draft.
you do know that part of Correa’s plea deal likely involves him testifying on record as to what he’s pleading guilty to, right? as in stating once and for all how many times he broke into the network and when?
and if the Cardinals as an organization were getting information out of this that directly effected their ability to draft and make trades based on information that had no right having, that effects the appropriate punishment by the league
the punishment should be at least equivalent to the advantage gained by the cheating…
but yeah, that’s not common sense…
Huh? What does that have to do with my comment? Teams already know their draft picks, slot amounts, and total pool money….MLB wasn’t going to throw all of that away and start over. The draft is less than 2 weeks away, it was common sense they weren’t going to take 2016 picks away, at this point.
As to your comment that you apparently wanted to get off your chest since it has nothing to do with what I said. I completely agree. If the league believes the Cardinals gained an advantage from this, the hammer should come down,no question. I have no problem with major penalties if the league feels it’s necessary.
But from the facts that have actually came out about the case, many are likely going to be disappointed by the punishment. This has all the signs of a disgruntled employee that he didn’t get chosen be Correa to go to Houston. We will see, I admit more could come out. But from where things stand now, I don’t think the punishment will be near as much as you think.
I fail to see what Correa’s actual sentence has anything to do with the Cardinals’ punishment from the Commish. It implies that a weak sentence for Correa means MLB can be lenient with the Cards organization, but what happens if Correa goes to prison? Probably not much more than the lenient version.
The MLB’s lack of action against the Cardinals puts it’s credibility in question. This idiosyncratic policy of looking the other way when teams like the Red Sox and Cardinals are caught cheating is wrong. These teams load up on draft picks year after year and stay in contention, why do they need to cheat…and get away with it too?
Those who are demanding a rush to judgement have not read the facts of this case.
Chris Correa was originally hired by Jeff Luhnow to analyze the stats & skills of American high school & small college prospects. At the time Mr. Luhnow was the director of scouting for the Cardinals.
When Mr. Luhnow left to be the GM for the Astros and upon conversations some of with Mr. Luhnow’s .employees with the Astros Mr. Correa became concerned that Mr. Luhnow stole Mr. Correa’s “intellectual property”. So Mr. Correra hacked the Astros computer to find out. That is why Mr. Correa is now in trouble.
The FBI must make the following determinations before reporting to the Federal judge who will then make his determinations.
1. Did Mr. Luhnow take Mr. Correa’s “intellectual property?
2. If so did Mr. Luhnow have a legal right to do so; he was Mr. Correa’s boss at the time. As the boss was he entitled to it?
3. Upon arriving at the Astros did Mr. Luhnow develop the computer analysis software independently of what Mr. Correa had developed previously? That is what Mr. Luhnow claims.
4. Finally, did anyone within the Astros’ or Cardinals’ organization aid Mr. Correa during his attempt to hack the Astros’ computer?
Some of those factual matters may weigh into things a bit, but that’s not how criminal sentencing works. It’s an adversarial process; the judge doesn’t just read an FBI report and then reach a decision. Plus, federal sentencing guidelines provide significant constraints.
That certainly is true. However the judge will in all probability await the final report as this is a “white collar crime” of hacking another MLB organization’s computer. There is also the matter of who else was involved; did they also break the law? Look at how long it is taking to resolve the court cases involving Wall Street and the Housing & Investment Banking industry.from cases that were started in 2008 & 2009.
This is a minor violation and the Astros should be worried about being sued for stealing the Cardinals system. If Cardinals lose picks then the MLB needs to needs to rescind Yankees, RedSox…World Series titles for steroid enchanted teams that cheated to win.