Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said in October that the league was nearing the end of its investigation into the improper accessing of the Astros’ computer systems by the Cardinals, but no decision has come in the nearly four months since then. It appears that’s about to change. The league could impose sanctions on the Cardinals sometime soon – perhaps as early as the upcoming week – report Dave Barron and Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle.
MLB is nearing a decision thanks to U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes’ choice to unseal details concerning ex-Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa’s hacking of the Astros’ email and player evaluation systems beginning in 2012. Correa, whom the Cardinals fired in 2015 and who was sentenced to a 46-month prison sentence and ordered to pay $279K in July, breached the Astros’ proprietary computer network, “Ground Control,” 48 times and accessed the accounts of five Houston employees, per court documents.
Correa had unlimited access to the email account of Astros director of decision sciences Sig Mejdal, who previously worked with Correa in St. Louis and was “one of Correa’s rivals,” wrote prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney Michael Chu in one document. Hacking Mejdal’s email enabled Correa to know “what projects the Astros’ analytics department was researching, what concepts were promising and what ideas to avoid,” per Chu.
Among many other transgressions which Barron and Kaplan detail in a piece that’s definitely worth a full read, Correa used Houston general manager (and former Cardinals employee) Jeff Luhnow’s password to break into the Astros’ system. Correa also studied the Luhnow-led Astros’ trade notes “at least 14 times” leading up to the non-waiver deadline in 2013, according to Chu, who wrote that Correa “was keenly focused on information that coincided with the work he was doing for the Cardinals” and was gaining “invaluable” information from analytics-minded Houston. The Astros went through a “humiliating episode” when their trade notes were leaked to the public in 2015 and had to privately apologize to the majors’ other teams, notes Chu, who believes Correa was behind the leak.
Although the Cardinals fired Correa amid their own investigation into his violations, they could nonetheless face some form of punishment. Manfred lamented in the fall that the league hadn’t gotten enough help from the U.S. attorney’s office, though it appears the newly released information will hasten a decision from MLB.
chron.com/sports/astros/article/As-MLB-ruling-near…
Here is more detail on the dastardly deed. A shameful decade for the St. Louis Cardinals. Multiple draft picks and millions of dollars will be the result.
Shameful decade?
And I doubt that, they have to prove that others in the organIzation knew or benefitted from the information.
The proof speaks for itself. The info was accessed for use by a Cardinals front office employee to gain an advantage over another team in MLB. Thus, the Cards benefited and must face a penalty that sets an example for other teams.
lol stfu
Where does it say they have to prove anything? Isn’t this kind of stuff pretty much up to the discretion of the commissioner?
Yes. It’s pretty much left to him to decide what or if punishment is given. I know many Houston fans want the Cards to lose draft picks or organization to be heavily fined. I’m not at all sure he’ll go that far but we’ll see.
Would be a big waste of time for the league if they didn’t punish the Cardinals. Also, the lack of accountability would just encourage more of this behavior around the league. Taking away draft picks and a fine would be the appropriate action. How much and how many picks is debatable.
A decade? Correa hacked into the Astros’ database over a 2-and-a-half year period, which is considerably less than a “decade”.
Way to undercut any argument you have with hyperbole.
the team should only be penalized if it’s proven that it was a concerted effort by top brass. one guy alone deserves individual punishment.
you don’t penalize the whole organization for one player’s actions on the field.
that being said, if the top brass were involved, throw the book at them.
No, A concerted effort doesn’t need to be proved. Manfred needs to set a precedence. This wasn’t on a field.
I guess it depends if you would be upset if someone downloaded all of your team’s draft data.
If you would be fine with the Cardinals data being breached, then corporate espionage in baseball should be acceptable to you.
patriots were severly penalized yet nothing was proven…precedence in sports
You must have missed the part of the article where the guy got sentenced to 48 months in prison in a court of law. I would say that is proven.
you must have missed the part that the patriots organization, coach, and player was penalized for the action of one equipment manager…and yet other teams caught in the same act were given slaps on the hand…
Yeah, but the Pats were repeat offenders
so were the cardinals…over 40 times accessing astros account…
And this guy repeatedly infiltrated the Astros’ database. He only had to be caught the one time to trace back all the other attempts, successful or otherwise.
For Spygate it was proven. Deflategate , no clue.
sorry for spygate everyone was doing it, patriots just got guinea pigged…
Not for spygate, they didn’t. Goodell burned the evidence and swept it under the rug for the Patsies. And instead of learning, they just cheated and got caught again.
right…sorry every football team in texas sucks…
And pats fans are super classy!
Nope. As an employee of the team, the team is responsible for its employees actions. Throw the book at them I say
Ever heard of a fall guy?
Bill Dewitt is so cheap he’ll probably welcome losing the draft picks! Smh
This is worse than I thought it would be.
Scumbag organization.
that’s all you got lol
I have an idea that….. might work.
Evaporating draft picks is of questionable legitimacy. What seems more possible would be to transfer whichever picks are going to be sanctioned to just after the 40th Round. And move everyone else’s picks up the slot or two.
The picks are the same in number.
However, the violating team gets selection(s) dropped to the very end.
Everyone else’s drat pools go up very slightly. St. Louis’ go the other way.
umm….what cardinals did was in fact 100% illegitimacy. therefore they deserve to lose picks.
– lose next 3 first round picks
– lose next 5 2nd round picks
– 10 million dollar penalty
– can’t receive compensation for revenue sharing next 2 years
Not arguing the punishment. At all.
If the picks disappear entirely, the money for draft bonuses disappears.
The money for draft picks should still be available.
Just not to an organization that committed corporate espionage.
Give them picks after the 40th Round. All the teams that played by the rules move up, and the Cardinals money is spread among them.
they lose picks….there are multiple rounds of picks…also 10 million dollar penalty should cover it…
Love it.
That is way more significant than anything Correa did.
The punishment doesn’t fit the crime.
A pick, maybe two. 5ish million in fines.
Did you guys read the documents?
2 1st rounders 1million and 4 game suspension for deflategate even though they did nothing wrong…
your on the wrong thread. try NFL trade rumors.
isnt it funny how there was endless media coverage on the patriots yet barely a weeks’ coverage of atlanta faking crowd noise, or even this POS story?
I do not care what controversies happen in handegg
Jesus, you’re team’s about to win another super bowl and you’re still bitching about deflate gate?
Seriously, leave those comments for the nfl rumors page…especially if you’re trying to defend the pats as anything but the biggest cheaters in sports
I would doubt one in 20 that comment read the actual article on MLBTR, let alone the article in the Chronicle or the actual court documents the judge released.
Bonus money needs to be reduced commensurate with the lost picks.
I’d prefer the picks drop to sub-40. And the other 29 teams get to spend the bonus money.
stop spreading your stupid idea…
pot, meet kettle. and quit calling him black
The Union will not allow any punishment that will result in less money being available to players (i.e. No loss of picks, no moving picks to lesser slots, etc.).
Well, draft pick money is going to non-Union members, so the fuss isn’t as likely to be as great as it would if they were forbidden from spending at the big league level.
However, if $2 million is removed from the draft, there will be a fuss.
Regardless what any of us think.
As much as there was a fuss when the Dbacks just chose not to spend their full draft pool? These are optional dollars, nothing about it is guaranteed. And anyway, you could just redistribute their pool dollars to the Astros or amongst all 29 other teams, and the dispute is gone, unless people want to argue about the 10 or so fewer players that are selected overall.
this is far worse than deflategate…cardinals and everyone involved needs to pay more than the fair price
Yep, corporate espionage, theft and dissemination of intellectual property, etc. It’s ugly, and the penalties should be severe enough to ensure that this never happens again.
Guy is going to prison for 46 months and paying almost 300k in fines and will never work in baseball again, who knows what he can ever do professionally again.
I’d say the punishment he received would deter anyone from even considering such actions again.
So, you’re a cardinals fan?
You don’t need to be a cardinals fan to not want to go on a witch hunt.
Did Luhnow never change his password? Someone will catch onto Pujolsforever01 at SOME point.
Swapped to ih8jon!Singleton
Lol this is great
Changed to 2O13Regerts!
Lol…Up arrow for you sir, thanks for the laugh…
Here’s the thing, this is an extremely important decision for Commissioner Manfred. Perhaps the biggest he’s made so far.
If Manfred makes the punishment too light other teams MIGHT just be tempted to try the same thing.
If the punishment is too tough it could destroy an organization that is making MLB a lot of money.
I would say not only do the Cardinals need to be punished, but the Astros need to receive some type of compensation from the Cardinals. Whether that’s strictly money or prospects, who knows?
This is arguably the most interesting scenario of the entire offseason.
No amount of reasonable penalties would destroy the Cards, but at the same time, they would really, really hurt (as they should).
Realistically, very severe penalties could set their farm system back as far back as, say, the Angels, Dbacks, or Marlins, but those guys did it to themselves. For a well run org, it would hurt, but they wouldn’t be “destroyed”.
Force the Cards to take the Angels farm system. Now THAT would be painful. Ouch. 😉
But the Angels farm system is no longer the “worst in baseball!!” lol…I believe that title belongs to the Marlins now…
Either way, that would cripple any franchise!! The Angels would probably crap themselves if they got St Louis’ system…Only to then screw it up all over again…lol
The reason why Manfred hasn’t issued a punishment is because it’s hard to assess if the organization benefited at all from this data breach. All of you calling for the Cardinals draft picks not to mention millions of dollars in fines are off your rockers. I would say setting precendence for something like this is extremely difficult, especially after a man has already been tried and found guilty. For all we know this was a personal dispute that ended badly.
versus deflategate? you are no voice of reason and your reasoning pairs awfully in comparison to what was given to the patriots…this is far far worse on so many levels…
Sag, I’m assuming you hate the Cards or something?
As far as anyone can tell, Correa acted alone and didn’t look into as much information as he could have. And it doesn’t look like the Cardinals ever benefited from any of it. The only player they ever took was Gonzales.
Rob a bank, but don’t spend any of the money – no harm, no foul!
Nope, i dont hate the cardinals but there are fans on this site who are diehard cardinals fans who blur the lines of fairness and fanaticism. this is now a multi billion dollar industry…the punishment must fit the crime and exceed it…
then of course china, russia, and any other country hacking the US is just fine and dandy!
I never said no penalty. But let’s keep this in perspective and be realistic.
Those asking for money and draft picks to be lost are likely going to be upset by the sanctions imposed.
whos dictating perspective? not you… im giving my opinion….
Lol Seriously!?!..That’s like saying I can commit whatever crime I want, but as long as it isn’t the ABSOLUTE worst possible outcome I’m good as gold and shouldn’t be punished…Using that ridiculous logic, I guess that means I can shoot a man, but as long as I don’t kill him, no harm no foul..correct??
It makes me wonder at what point in time JFactor thought that was truly a rational argument and a valid point…I’m guessing stupidity is the real “J Factor?”
No. That’s like saying your employer should not be held responsible if they weren’t involved with you shooting a guy. The guy that did the hacking (which is being used pretty loosely in this instance) is sentenced to 46 months in prison.
Trump supporters seem to think so
Finally, a voice of reason! Frosttie, you are exactly right, who in the organization knew of Correa’s illegal misdeeds and how did the club benefit. Without that information , very difficult to issue a devastating penalty.
Well the documents said they accessed the Astros draft data on players including Marco Gonzalez. Then the Cardinals drafted him in the first round. That is a pretty direct connection from the “hacking” to the Cardinals using the information.
MLB gives the cardinals a choice, $100M fine or the Astros get the player of their choice from the cardinals active roster. The fine would work as if they just signed a free agent, $20M for 5 years.
not enough
I know, in 2017-2018, all wooden bats are banned in the Cardinal dugout, and they can only use broom handles, or they have to come to the plate blindfolded
I lol’ed, but even that probably wouldn’t be enough for Mr. Leo…
Let’s be realistic though for a minute, I think they should have to spin around 20 times before each at-bat, they must be blind-folded, AND each player must run in high heels…
I mean fair is fair…
no way they would let astros pick one player from the cards organization. it’ll be money and picks
The tl;dr is basically, The Astros have exceptionally poor IT security practices, idiots who use the same password for different employers, and the Cardinals had a guy who instead of turning in employee machines to Cardinals IT, kept them, unlocked them and knew passwords of ex-Cardinals employees that went to the Astros.
Then he used those passwords (or variations) in a non-sophisiticated intrusion into the Astros systems and some email accounts.
#1: Anyone using a Google account should turn on two-factor authentication.
#2: Anyone with half a brain should change their passwords regularly, never use the same password at a different job and holy shit just don’t put different garbage on the end of your password. If your password is Cody07Ashley10 because your two kids are Cody and Ashley and they were born in 07 and 10, and the best you can do is change it to Ashley10Cody07 for your next job, you should be fired. This isn’t the 60’s where it’s still cute to know nothing about technology.
#3: Apparently, and this doesn’t justify jack, Lunhow and other ex-Cardinals took Cardinals information to their new job according to Correa but the judge in the case declined to enter the Astros system into evidence and therefore nobody’s gonna find out if that claim is true at all, which sorta sucks.
It looks like the Cardinals didn’t get any real useful information from the whole ordeal since other teams drafted the dudes or the Astros didn’t even have a pick before the Cardinals did in the spots where players were accessed by Correa. There may be more to it, but it doesn’t REALLY look like there’s more than just the embarassment of the guy leaking trade notes to Deadspin, which is good enough to send a guy to prison for I suppose but it doesn’t really seem like this is a solid reason to send any harsh punishment to the Cardinals since it’s not like the guy was being told by anyone on the Cardinals staff to do what he was doing.
I’d go ahead and fire whoever didn’t set a policy to get terminated employee laptops sent straight to a lockup after termination though, that kinda thing at any job should be 100% mandatory for alllll sorts of reasons.
Ok Cardman Dave. Obfuscate if you wish.
The “she was asking for it” defense, that’s great, Dave.
Regardless of victim blaming or not, the Astros certainly didn’t protect their software like a billion dollar company should.
Doesn’t excuse any actions, but Correa got in way too easily.
I protect my gmail account better than they protected their proprietary software.
probably because they didn’t expect someone else in mlb to try to steal it. you know, cuz doing that results in prison time…
The organization I work for has just about exactly the same amount of revenue as the Astros and just had all employee data hacked by a high school kid.
And what exactly is this kid’s name?? I’m just asking for a friend… (; lol
The only evidence you have for the Astros having proprietary cardinals information is from a convicted criminal trying to justify his illegal activity. His activity within the Astros database is completely incongruous with his claim as well. It’s a pretty big breach of rights to start an investigation into whether the Astro’s employees took proprietary information with them when they left the Cardinals based illegally obtained proof. It’s even worse to start one based on the desperate testimony of a felon.
I would also fire all the morons on the Astros who didn’t change their passwords. WTF were they thinking?
Except Marco Gonzalez was specifically named and the Cardinals took him.
Just because you have poor password selection doesn’t mean it is ok for someone from another organization to get into your personal data.
Even if Lunhow took information with him when he switched organizations that is a completely different situation. He had information because he worked there and if he didn’t have a no compete clause in his contract, and I doubt he did or he couldn’t have taken that job in the first place, he is within his rights to share that data with his new organization. Now getting into the system of a team you don’t and have never worked for is something completely different.
Death penalty: disband the cardinals organization, strip them of all championships, give their players to other teams, burn down their stadium and wizz in the ashes. That would be an acceptable penalty for what they did.
Or just force them to play in East St Louis – all the other stuff will happen eventually.
You have quickly become my favorite member of the MLBTR community…
This comment and the joke before have me rolling…Sincerely, I do thank you for the good laughs sir!!
Ok I hate the Cardinals but get real madman..
Hilarious how severe most of these penalties suggestions are. Somebody suggested allowing the Astros to take a player off the Cards active roster – that’s legitimately idiotic. Another suggested 3 1st round picks and 5 2nd round picks – almost as idiotic as the player suggestion. Must be a lot of fans that are, for some reason, beyond personally offended with the Cardinals success the past decade and a half or so.
If it was solely Correa and there are no connections to upper management, 2nd round pick and $5mm penalty. If the data was used throughout the organization, then I cannot even venture a guess.
hilarious. cardinals fan. stfu no one cares about you
Or you, asinine troll.
apparently i hurt your feelings
no 8 year old is hurting anyone’s feelings in this sit3, sorry sagbagels
site*
hilarious. Patriots fan still obsessing over his star QB getting caught doing what many others did. With so much movement in front offices I think it likely there are right now other MLB secrets exposed that nobody is aware of. So like Brady, Correa is the one who got caught. But I do have hope Correa can be rehabilitated and return to the workforce. “Shady Brady and Bill Bellicheat” (look up the song) need a new go-to man.
I’m going to take a guess that you haven’t read too many of the comment threads here before??
Either way, welcome to MLBTR, you are now free to roam under the bridge with the rest of the trolls…lol
create an account just to say this….
nevermind sagbagels. apparently he has been so butthurt by cardinal fans making him look like an idiot on this website that he cannot help but act out like this. add that to the fact, he was so upset that his team lost to the cards, that he kicked his dog forcing his woman to leave him. so obviously because of all that, he is a little blind to anything negative happening to them, forgetting how:
– no proof others involved
– a precedent was set towards the employee given jail, fines, loss of a cushy job, embarrassment to his family, undue burden to the family due to loss of income, the guy never being able to get a significant job ever again
– there was zero proof of any advantage gained
for those of you who think tl;dr, shorter reply is the guy is butthurt and letting his mouth run wild due to it
lol you just said you were so butthurt by me, you had to create an account…you dont even know what team(s) i’m a fan of lmao…
proof you live in your own little world. i never said such a thing. i said you were butthurt given your act in this comment thread which everyone else can see for themselves for proof
Oh yeah? My dad can beat up your dad
What is your favorite kind of bagel?
I take it he likes “s”alami “a”nd “g”ouda?? Or maybe he likes them “s”alty “a”nd “g”ooey??
Apparently, he is not fond of St. Louis’ bagels, although I have heard they are a steal of a deal!!
Correa also mentioned that he let his colleagues know about this, so there are others in the Cardinals organization that knew this was going on and didn’t care to say anything to stop him. I don’t think there is any doubt that the information gathered was done to help Correa with his job, which in turn is favorable to the organization. The fact that the data he illegally obtained may not have been very helpful to the organization is mostly irrelevant. First of all, the fact that the Cardinals didn’t draft most of these guys could have been directly tied to the information gathered from the Astros turning up negative reports about them, Second, in as far as punishment goes,the end result is factored in, but intent is important as well. you still go to jail if you miss when trying to shoot someone.
I didn’t see that anywhere in the court documents that were released. Can you point out what page that information was on?
stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/cardinals… is where he stated that he informed colleagues about the hack, and the chron article linked I thought did a good job of breaking down how the information accessed was relevant to his job.
Here is the thing. If Correa was doing this on the clock or on the Cardinals systems they are 100% responsible for his actions. If he mentioned even 1 thing he found on the Astros servers they are again responsible for his actions. His intentions were to give his company an advantage over another company by illegally procuring data from the competitive company.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Cards cheat in games too. I called it in 2012 so not surprised of this scandal.
Give picks to the astros.? Maybe ..or just whack them with huge fine .What correa did is a federal felony. He fell on his sword for top brass , no way none of them knew anything.
As was mentioned, they never checked the Astros system to see if they in fact had stolen proprietary information from the Cardinals when Lunhow and other former employees came to Houston. When the judges asked Correa why he did it, he said because he suspected that. When asked if he did find any info, he said yes. But since they didn’t look into it, it’s just written off as the Cardinals hacked the Astros to get an advantage. Which isn’t even what happened. And yes, it’s been said by MLB and I believe the judge or whatever that there is no evidence that it ever went up the chain of command or that anyone outside of Correa and his handful of minions ever knew about or were aware of what was going on.
Should they be punished, yes. But some of these suggestions are clearly being said without any full understanding of the events that took place.
A den of thieves. Wouldn’t be surprised if Correa gets offed in prison. Stan Musial is turning in his grave.
$16mil to Astros, loss of 2 years of first round picks.
I think this is the worst comment feed I have ever read on MLB trade rumors, I mean really guys, mlb network came out with their top 100 prospects tonight, I feel like that deserves a little bit more attention… just my opinion
so why are you trying to censor this story, which is so much more devastating than deflategate? …and we had to listen and watch a whole year’s worth of coverage?
I heard about deflategate like twice. when you turn off espn, it’s amazing how much less garbage you are exposed to. Also please stop trying to use this as a parallel, they are very different sports with different attention.
The only time I watch ESPN is when the waitress won’t change the channel for me
Thank you. He’s comparing apples to oranges over and over. He probably has a “Free Brady” sticker on his car. Also, Manfred is not Goodell…which makes a huge difference
You keep citing this.
ESPN cares about the Patriots and the Lakers and LeBron.
And that’s it. Baseball rarely gets a mention. So this certainly won’t be discussed there.
Also, read what actually happened.
You’ve spent enough time commenting, take the same amount of time, read the link and understand what happened.
You are asking for far too much. Why would people want to actually be informed before making a comment? That sounds far too much like work.
The real crime is Sean Reid-Foley’s mustache.
Who cares, it’s all popularity anyway. After being disappointed by Domonic Brown, I have just as much faith in no names as top prospects.
I propose that they should retroactively have to trade Bob Gibson to the Astros.
You people in these comments are being ridiculous. And I don’t care how many of you determine my opinion doesn’t matter because you all loath the Cardinals so much. This is going far beyond what it is for one, and there’s no proof this was an act organized by the Cardinals other than a bad staff member that was trying to get back at other Ex-staff. It also appears no actual information benefitted the Cardinals. But the Ex-staff from the Cardinals to the Astro’s took information and no one cares. The man is in prison, and has to pay hefty fines. Should the Cardinals be punished? Yes. If not, other organizations would do it. But they don’t need 20 draft picks taken and $800 million worth of fines. Seriously some of these “suitable punishments” that you people are suggesting are just completely idiotic. You don’t need to destroy an organization to punish them. And you all need to quit getting so personal about it. I know there’s some stupid stigma about Cardinals fans, which in itself is ridiculous because we’re all just fans of baseball whichever team it is. Stop comparing it to deflategate because thats the NFL a completely and totally different organization. I actually saw someone suggest $100 million worth of fines in addition to draft picks and a player of their choice to the Astro’s. Now that’d totally upwards of $250 million in total value depending on the player, for 1 person committing a valueless crime. A draft pick maybe, with some fines. That’s already around $45 million. I’m not sure some of you realize the gargantuan amount of money that is, because high prices run around the MLB so often. I don’t think some of you understand how finances of this scale works. This isn’t your pocketbook. So please quit acting like some of you have any idea what you’re talking about.
paragraphs man
Totally worth the read for the last sentence
You’re giving people too much credit…Also, when writing long rants, I do not think using separate paragraphs ever killed anyone..
I’m glad grammar is what everyone took out of it
There was something about the Cardinals in there too, I think. But mostly the humongous megaparagraph
paragraphs are not grammar.
Maybe I should have written a singular sentence proclaiming that everyone associated with the Cardinals shall be hanged at dawn for their high crimes against the crown. It’s what everyone wants to hear anyway.
They’re going to lose a 1st rounder and be fined a couple million. Some people are really hoping this cripples the cardinals lol. But for you cards fans, don’t be ignorant enough to think this is one mans work. There’s almost definitely higher ups who knew what he was doing.
I do doubt he’s the only one that knew about it, but don’t think anyone else will likely be implicated. Cardinals punishment will be difficult to assess, but think will likely be fine and a draft pick as you said. Draft pick will likely have to be replaced to keep union happy (maybe give a supplemental pick in 10th to small market team and move up all other picks). I’m not sure Astros will receive much….maybe the fine.
A first round pick is worth a minimum of $2 million and as much as $7.4 million in 2017. If they take a pick from the Cardinals, MLB will have to replace that value to the draft to keep the MLBPA happy.
I think that unless MLB has information that was not in the court documents indicating that others in the Cardinals organization knew about Correa’s activities that losing a 1st or 2nd round draft pick and fine of $2-5 million will be what we see coming down from Manfred.
a bonus amount doesnt quanitfy a picks value. read: hardballtimes.com/the-net-value-of-draft-picks/
from that article, “Regardless of how you apply the discount, this table illustrates how much this affects a draft pick’s value. For example, a pick in the 26-30 range (like the one the Braves gave up for Ervin Santana) appears to be worth around $16.6 million in today’s dollars. However, when you account for the fact that the pick won’t produce any value for years to come, the value drops more than 50 percent to $8.1 million.
The same draft picks would be worth $10.9 million if you were to assume just a five percent annual discount for future WAR”
I actually don’t think the MLBPA will care considering the guys drafted will not be part of the union and it will in no way affect the union.
If you say “no one benefited, they should have protected themselves or the punishment is already enough” you know that you are on the wrong side of the argument.
With this story getting dragged on for so long people are forgetting a big piece of the story which started the entire public end of it.
Let’s say that this was an effort by the Cardinals top brass to steal information to get a competitive edge. Why would they release the information to deadspin.com? People forget that this all started to go public as deadspin published lopsided trade proposals. If you were stealing information wouldn’t you keep it in house? I know this part is being ignored as it kills the Cardinals haters cases for SMU style penalties.
This was 1 of 2 things.
1. A person who was pissed Luhnow didn’t offer him a higher ranking job than he had with the Cardinals when Luhnow took over the Astros.
Or
2. A person who had a feud with member(s) of Luhnow’s crew and was jealous that they got a great offer.
Yes I am a Cards fan, but this is in no way me saying these are reasons the Cardinals organization should not be punished. Businesses (and baseball teams are businesses) are responsible for the actions of their employees whether they knew or didn’t. My guess is the penalty will be a lost first round pick and a large financial fine. Baseball is not hammering the Cardinals in an SMU style as some on here are hoping for.
In the keeping it in house, I think Correa realized that Astros became aware of intrusion (or at least lost access) before information was leaked. So yes, the information was likely kept in house while Correa was still able to access it. I would consider Correa a member of the “top brass” at the time (or at least high enough that his involvement alone is bad for Cards). He did release it out of spite whether it be hatred for former coworker or that he suspected he was being investigated for corporate espionage. Granted, I don’t think the Cardinals will get an SMU penalty.
Though, I am only guessing that FBI was investigating before release to the public and could be wrong.
No penalties handed out. Investigation over. You guys make a bid deal out of nothing. Go Cardinals! Get back on top like you have been in last 20 years. It’s been one of the greatest runs in baseball history. What a ride!
There will be penalties, just not as severe as what some are calling for. Baseball can’t let this go without penalties to send a message.
Cant believe no one has brought up the Red Sox being unable to sign a single international player for an entire signing period (and losing the rights to the players they shouldn’t have ever signed) for doing something that is peanuts compared to this.
So yes, I’m guessing the punishment will be very painful for the Redbirds.
If this was an orginizational decision to hack then the penalties should be more severe. We don’t know ifwas an orginizational thing or one person. If it was one person with a vendetta then it would not be worse than what the Red Sox did and should not carry the same level of punishment. All we have right now is speculation on both sides of the argument.
You can’t honestly think…
*Looks at screen name*
Nevermind
So let me get this straight….you think the Cardinals did this to cheat and get an edge. So their idea of the best way to do that, was to release the information so every other team in baseball had the same information?
Or, it’s one employee that was pissed he didn’t get taken on Lunhow’s staff and did this to embarrass him.
Which seems more logical?
You really can’t see past your own bias on this one. First of all, Correa’s motivations don’t matter whatsoever when figuring out whether the Cardinals should be punished. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Second, the Cardinals didn’t “release the information so every other team in baseball had the same information”
In fact, the article clearly states:
“Correa also studied the Luhnow-led Astros’ trade notes “at least 14 times” leading up to the non-waiver deadline in 2013.”
The Cardinals broke the rules in severe way, and will be punished severely for it.
We will see. I’m really not biased on it at all. I don’t care what the penalties are. In fact, when it first came out I thought it would be a much bigger deal. I just think some of the suggestions are funny and believe most here and going to be really disappointed when they see the actual punishment.
I belie believe t will be like a 2nd round pick a few million dollar fine. Which I think is more for show than anything.
I could be wrong, we will see soon (hopefully)
And I even missed this part of the article “The unsealed government sentencing report details the degree to which Correa used information from the Astros to influence the Cardinals’ draft and trade decisions. Prosecutors also noted that several months after his intrusions from March 2013 through June 2014, Correa in December 2014 received a promotion from the Cardinals.”
Very damning.
Right. He really wasn’t an important member of the organization until after all if the “hacking” happened. He was one part of a draft team.
It was very damning for him, he was sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison. Let’s see what happens. Maybe they will take 8 draft picks or players off the team like was suggested in the comments. (Spoiler: They won’t)
he influenced the draft for the cardinals. It was just damning for him! I am not biased!
Uh, what?
i seem to recall that info on the pirates came out as a result of a few trade proposals. it was along time ago but i recall the bucs being embarrassed. so its a bit more than you are making it out to be.
B1gpupp
So you ignore the part where I said regardless of guilt or innocence the Cardinals are still responsible for the actions of their employees even when they didn’t know, then go and post that based on my screen name my views are biased based? That would be me defending or trying to explain why they shouldn’t get penalties. Go back and read acouple messages back and you will see that there is no bias on the topic.
Well that Red Sox penalty was specific to the crime. They violated international signing rules so their punishment was in that area. This is basically a corporate espionage case.
Cardinals Scouting Director Chris Correa already stole his last name from the Houston shortstop. And now computer hacking too??
Nice one Boof
So to summarize this entire comment thread:
Cardinals fans – wasn’t an organizational thing should get 0 to mild penalties
Everyone else – they should get a pretty decent penalty
JFactor – they were asking for it
Themed – I’m a huge homer blah blah blah
Something about the patriots.
Where did I ever say anything even close to ‘they were asking for it?’
I don’t think this will result in first round picks but high money amounts in fines are vert probable.
fire the entire Cards front office to set an example. Ownership and the fans had no idea, why punish them? Plus I am sure they didn’t get a competitive edge by jokingly looking at a fired employees email that he was dumb enough to use the same password.
Four thoughts::
1. Regardless of whether the Cardinals management knew what Correa was doing, they obviously benefited from his corporate espionage. So, some form of punishment absolutely should be coming.
2. Whatever that punishment is, it’ll probably be viewed as too light by many people, based on the comments posted here. Manfred has said in the past year that the weight of said punishment entirely depends on whether the Cardinals organization knew what Correa was doing, and he actually drew a distinction between the Cardinals hacking scandal and what the Red Sox did. That’s why MLB was waiting to see the results of the Federal investigation; to see what they turned up. And they turned up nothing.
3. There’s been several suggestions that Correa was a fall guy. There’s a problem with this; a fall guy usually gets a deal from the people he’s trying to cover up, or he’ll turn on the people who are offering him up as a sacrificial lamb to protect themselves. And there’s too many issues with that theory for it to hold much water. The Cardinals terminated Correa’s contract, cutting him loose just weeks after his first draft without any payout, with Correa’s lawyer denying any illegal conduct and trying to throw the blame on former Cardinal employees working for the Astros. The Federal investigation notes several times that Correa insisted he kept “his intrusions secret from his colleagues.”. And now he’s serving nearly 4 years in prison. Correa-as-a-fall-guy doesn’t make any sense: the Cardinals destroyed his career and reputation by firing him as they did. He’ll never work again in baseball after this. He’s got zero reason to protect anyone in the Cardinals organization. He attempted to paint the Astros as the ones doing the wrong thing and him as the hero, something that the feds and judge didn’t buy in the least. It’s far more likely that he’s simply a vindictive twit who allowed his personal rivalry with a former coworker turn into a ladder-climbing opportunity for himself. This is a guy who went from a data analyst to scouting director in 5 years, and that rise was no doubt fueled by the scouting information he purloined from the Astros and combined with the Cardinals’ own scouting. It wouldn’t be the first time an employee used illegal means to get ahead.
4. That said…Correa really comes off as an asshat.