MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says that the league is nearing the end of its investigation into the improper accessing of the Astros’ computer systems by at least one Cardinals employee, as the Associated Press reports (via USA Today).
“We are in the process of finishing up our investigation,” said Manfred. “I wish it had gotten a little more help a little sooner from the U.S. attorney’s office. But the cards come up how they come up, and we’re going to finish our investigation, and there will be a resolution of that during this offseason.”
Unsurprisingly, the commissioner did not hint as to whether the team would face any punishment, or if so of what kind and severity. The individual seemingly directly responsible for mining information from the computer systems of the Houston organization, then-Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa, has already paid an extremely heavy price with a prison sentence and order to pay restitution.
It seems to be all but a foregone conclusion that the Cards will face some kind of punitive measure, since the intrusion came from a fairly high-ranking member of its front office hierarchy. But the scope will surely be tied to Manfred’s assessment of how high up the chain of command the matter rose. The Cardinals have suggested publicly that this was an isolated situation, but as Manfred’s comments hint, nobody is really sure what the prosecuting authorities know (and what of that they’ve shared with the league).
Did they ever find out who else new about the hacking? I know Correa admitted that others in the Cardinals front office knew, but he didn’t specify who, or at least i didnt hear who it was. That will have a huge impact on what the punishment will be
He was the scapegoat, clearly. 100% he was involved but zero chance it was only him
Please eliminate them from being eligible for future competitive balance lottery picks for being a “small market” team.
This should happen regardless.
Strongly agreed. They are absolutely not a small market at all, and the fact they get lumped in with the Rays and A’s is so insulting to those true small market teams.
I think they should have their 1st round draft picks forfeited for the next 3 seasons, maybe even with the Astros getting those picks, or just skipping the Cards altogether – seems like the most fair result.
I could see the Cards losing picks as being a fair punishment, I don’t know if the Astros getting them is fair. Maybe something similar to QO system where instead of the Astros picking at the Cardinals spot, the Astros get a comp pick as if the Cardinals signed a guy who was tagged with a QO from the Astros.
Um, the last list I saw had St. Louis as 3rd lowest population of MLB cities. How is that not small market? Just because they have a good team, and a great fan base, doesn’t mean by the #’s they’re not a small market team.
STL isn’t exactly a large market team, not sure why some think it is.
It is not based off of cities. It is based off of metro areas. And regardless if it is based on cities Or Metro Areas, why does everyone call the Braves (8th) and Marlins (9th) small market teams when their metro area have a higher population than Boston (10th) and San Francisco (11th)? Are you really going to tell me in baseball, Boston and San Fran are “smaller markets” than Atlanta and Miami?
Should the Braves and Marlins be put in the class with the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, etc.?
And it is not the 3rd lowest, it is the 6th lowest. MLB teams behind them are Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cinci, Cleveland, and Milwaukee.
I should have added that last year they were the most profitable team in baseball ($70 million) and Forbes this year ranks them 7th at $1.6 billion.
Sorry but it is not based on population, because the Padres (city ranked 8th in US population but team is 23rd in Forbes) would not be ahead of Boston (23rd in population, 3rd in Forbes). Those are rankings in All US cities by the way. Not cities with MLB teams.
I always thought the term “market” had to do with revenue. Not population.
Because they have maxed out their market better than any team in baseball.
It’s funny people get on here and act like the Cardinals slipped in by accident. Every owner in the league was involved in this and signed off on it. But I guess some Yankee fan on a blog knows how it should be better than they do.
So you think because I (and any others not named Cardinals, and apparently Atlanta Braves) fans feels that it is dumb to call them a small market , that we know “better than they do”?
Owners have signed off on a lot of things that people don’t like – No salary cap, Home Field advantage determined by All Star game. I suppose if you disagree with either of those 2 (or some of the many other topics listed in the CBA), you would say you “know it better than they do’?
Anyway you’re a Cards fan and you probably feel they shouldn’t be punished for this. Or if not, it should be a minor punishment since only “one guy” did it.
In the forties and before, the Cardinals market was Ankansas through New Mexico, cutting up through southrn and Central Illinois. No, it isn’t the forties anymore, but families and media trends often stay similar.
The Cardinals have a huge market, still. St. Louis is a smaller city, but their market remains huge, in terms of U.S. population. And square mileage.
Yes, they probably lost much of Texas, but their radio network is still strong in many areas. Coupled with their history of winning, it’s still tough to argue that their market is small since they represent ten states in their radio network. (Look it up.)
Okay so let me, as a non-cardinals fan who lives in the Cardinals area, set something straight. The Cardinals radio market does NOT stretch 10 states. I have seen the map of what their network is supposed to be but I can tell you that it’s not entirely correct.
Truth of the matter is that Mississippi is by far and large a big market for the Braves and you won’t find a station that plays the Cardinals games. Arkansas is divided but it’s still easy to find a Cardinals station. The southern part of Illinois gets a lot of Cardinals support but the higher north you get you start getting into Chicago territory. Iowa is largely a Chicago area. Kentucky and Tennessee both only have small portions of the state that have Cardinals support so you can’t lump the entire state as a “Cardinal Network”
Also consider that even the state of Missouri itself is divided between the Royals and Cardinals.
The nature of my job has me traveling all over the Midwest. I go through a lot of the states that you are claiming to be part of the Cardinals Network and I can assure you that, despite what a map on an MLB website may say, their network doesn’t consist of 10 states.
Here is a map of TV black out regions. I would suspect radio coverage would closely follow.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_blacko…
I’m a Yankees fan and I could care less about whether the Cardinals are on or off the list. I do question the general need for high pick competitive balance picks–I think an extra 4th rounder might be fairer to everyone.
Why should the cardinals be punished for doing a better job than the other small market teams? They are still a small market and have to work harder than teams like the Yankees to maintain their revenue.
Second in attendance to Dodgers and they have the widest fan ban in country. On top of that they have money like a large market.
Ya that shouldn’t be the punishment, that’s just common sense
Lol. This again?
The city of St. Louis compared to other markets is small.
How teams are ran is different.
Miami is a monster compared to St. Louis for example, but the Marlins are considered small market?
I’m sure more people knew. The hacking was done at a spring training house where other executives were housed in.
I bet he was the one offered something to take the fall for the higher ups so that they didn’t get caught. That’s only my opinion but I think that this is a very possible situation
What on earth do you think he was offered to take the fall, when taking the fall includes 46 months in prison. Seems unlikely to me that he would endure almost 4 years in prison to cover for someone higher up in the organization.
This isn’t over yet?
I know MLB wants to get this right, but as Manfred said, this has taken way too long. I also know that St. Louis and Houston said nice things about each other over this situation, but I like many, do not believe that Correa was the only one with dirty hands here. He had to be feeding that information to higher ups about what he found either directly or indirectly (through meetings and raising red flags from the others as to “how does he know that”).
There have been reports from Ken Rosenthal that there would be conceivably no loss of draft picks as this has to go through CBA and the players. That would be the real crime.in all of this.
St. Louis has to get pain for this action. And as others have noted, why do they get any competitive picks in the draft (where if they do, they should forfeit to Houston for this time being and maybe future) and/or lose first round picks at least for one year (again the pick going to Houston) and/or lose any first round picks due to anyone signing their free agents (where last season could have really hurt the Cardinals). It was noted that Houston had indicated that their loss was around $1.5 million, but I believe that is very low. The Cardinals knowledge of who Houston was going to draft, who they were going to trade and all the other baseball business related moves they were going to make, put Houston in a very poor spot since the Cardinals could counter any and all situations.
Cardinals, it’s time to pay.
I’m gonna go ahead and assume the Astros are in a better position to determine the value of the lost information than you are.
That amount was the estimation of the cost to acquire the information (salaries of scouts, travel expenses, etc) not what it was actually worth to the organization.
Lunhiw said that by the time the Cardinals got their hands on the information, it was already obsolete..
I really don’t care what the punishment is. Not my problem. But I find it funny how so many people who obviously have not followed the facts we have, get on here whining about what the punishment will be before it’s even handed down.
Lunhow said the information would be obsolete within a month or so. Given that Correa accessed the system literally during the draft, I’d imagine that information was not obsolete when it could have been useful to Correa.
I live in Texas and the Astros fans hate the Cards. I do find it funny that people on here voice their opinions like they know more than MLB or the Astros. The Astros organization has said publicly that the info was obsolete before the Cards could have benefited.
Go Rangers!!!
Have you followed the story? In June of 2015, Lunhow said that the information changes quickly and would likely be obsolete within a month or so of collection. At that time it was reported that Correa had downloaded a spreadsheet. At the sentencing over a year later, it was revealed that Correa had accessed the system 35 times, including during the draft and specifically searched the profiles the Astros had on a some of the yet-to-be-drafted players.. So it really appears you’re the only one here operating with obsolete information.
If Luhnow is playing poker with the value of this stolen information then let him. Personally, I would of said 120 million dollars?
I’m sure everyone can come to a middle ground from there. Unfortunately, it appears the peak of reward, because of Luhnow’s speak first play, will not exceed 1.5 million?
Lol
If “corporate espionage” is an accepted method of doing business, what if Drudge or some other source (or MLB rival) posts the Cardinals draft board on the internet three weeks before the draft?
Presumably, that would be okay.
Or similar corporate information.
I no longer care about the “scandal”. I don’t think that enough will be found for a non-government body to exact much punishment. However, if it’s the Cardinals (or whoever your team is) next time, a precedent should be set this time.
Committing corporate espionage is either fine, or it isn’t. You as a human being ought to be consistent in your stance.
If corporate espionage is deemed “not punishable if not provable”, then executives ought to hire spies to go with scouts and executives. It would be nice if that weren’t the case.
Would you just punish them already? lol I’ve heard this for so long, just want a resolution at this point.
If this was judged to be serious enough to get a guy sentenced to 46 months in prison I have to think the Cardinals are going to get spanked pretty good here. A slap on the wrist would seem weirdly inconsistent with that.
I doubt it. A fine against corporate. Perhaps a future asset sent to the Astros.
Whatever the betting line is, I’ll take the “under” on the severity of the punishment.
As a Cardinal fan, I would like some closure, have them take their punishment and move on.
It is laughable that this is even a talking point. St. Louis metro area is a smaller market, therefore they should be eligible for competitive balance picks. The real reason you people are complaining is because the Cardinals have been good for so long, but they should not be punished for utilizing what they have better than other teams. In addition, I would not be surprised if the only punishment is a fine of some sort or possibly limiting the international spending cap. We may never know what happened, but what we do know is that Correa hacked into Luhnows database and claimed to have found information stolen from the Cardinals. While we don’t know details, this story isn’t farfetched and due to no other Cardinals officials getting jail time, I have to assume the justice department did not find anyone else guilty. The punishment of jail time should be deterrent enough to not hack into other teams. A financial penalty would be enough for the teams to enforce this.
“St. Louis metro area is a smaller market”
Yeah I was thinking that was why, but then how come Atlanta and Miami get competitive balance lottery picks for being “small market” when they play in the 8th and 9th largest metro area populations in the country (Boston and San Francisco are even behind them, and I can bet you wouldn’t call either team a small market)
I think the market is defined by the TV market. That would be why Boston is large market (TV market would contain most of New England) and why the Nationals have to give concessions to the Orioles for moving into “their” market since DC and Baltimore are distinct metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the Census bureau, but reside within the same TV markets
Taking a look at the regions with local black out restrictions gives a good idea of the area covered:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_blacko…
The Orioles received revenue sharing funds, thus why they were eligible.
It’s based on consolidated statistical metropolitan areas (CSMAs). Here is a breakdown from Baseball Almanac (looks like the numbers are a bit older, but I don’t anticipate any city gaining or losing a million or two in such a short time span): baseball-almanac.com/articles/baseball_markets.sht…
By these numbers, St. Louis has the 7th smallest market in MLB at 2,603,607.
Now, for the Marlins and Braves… the competitive balance picks actually cover teams in the 10 smallest markets OR 10 smallest revenue pools. You are correct that the Marlins and Braves are not in the 10 smallest markets, but they do enter the competitive balance lottery based on the revenue pool rule.
Thanks for that info
It’s a very matrixed and somewhat confusing process, and I think most people assume it’s based off of either city population or revenue. From an outsider perspective, I do understand that a lot of fans dislike the Cardinals for different reasons… either their success or the whole BFIB deal (which I always thought was more media driven than fan driven but that’s a different debate). However, when you look at the actual process used by MLB and the data, St. Louis really is one of the 10 smallest markets in the US. (At least when we use the CSMA data that MLB uses). So yeah, it’s annoying that a team like the Cardinals get that extra pick, but it’s not like they’re scamming the system.
Oh I certainly know they aren’t scamming that and I know they are one of the best run organizations. I don’t like the Cardinals, but I don’t dislike them
By the way, just 2 years ago, Theo Epstein complained about this as well.
it’s the 6 teams with the smallest market and the 6 teams with the smallest revenue. So Miami and Atlanta would qualify because of the revenue
2nd +3rd + 4th +5th round picks in 2017 draft + the $$$ that goes with pics.
It will be a 2nd round pick.
The commissioner doesn’t have the power to take away draft picks.
With as much as he is pushing with his agenda, I wouldn’t put it past him to wholeheartedly try.
“the cards come up how they come up…” Manfred is already dropping hints. #Illuminati
Correa said while on the stand he did find data stolen from the Cardinals, which is what he was looking for. So I suspect Manfred’s punishment is going to try to sound big, but limit the damage to the Cardinals so they don’t push this further…I’m guessing a 2nd round pick and a couple million $ fine.
Expect the decision to be announced shortly after the World Series and before the owners meetings. (or during the meetings) Nothing will be announced till the playoffs are over because MLB would not want to take away from that with this distraction..
Well neither of the 2 teams are in the playoffs, so I don’t see how it’s a distraction. But you’re probably right. It likely won’t be announced until after the WS.
How does Manfred punish the Cardinals when he didn’t punish the Padres for Preller’s mistake?
Yes, there’s more legal doings in this, but the top guy for the Padres messed up and he was only suspended for 30 games when you know the whole front office knew about the medicals.
Correa’s in jail- that’s the punishment the Cardinals should get when comparing the two cases.
He did give the Red Sox the opportunity to rescind the Pomeranz trade.
They will probably give the GM a 30 day suspension in Jan during his vacation time.
I think it’s overblown by cardinal haters trying to bring down or punish a great organization. One guy acted stupidly and he got fired and put in jail, rightfully so. But nothing has ever proved that he acted with the teams prior knowledge or blessing. I own a small contracting business. If I have an employee that steals from a customer of mine, and I fire him as soon as I find out, does that then make me a thief because he worked for me at the time?
Did you benefit as a corporate entity from what was gathered?
The Cardinals did. If they whisked away for their private knowledge information regarding sign-ability, or any injury history, that is information they shouldn’t have had access to. I’m quite confident the draft board looked different after the new intel than it did before the breach.
That would have been information added due to a corporate hack.
If your employee finds out the (company secret company secret) from the heist, and you use that knowledge to improve your business, you get to decide for yourself if you’re a thief. What I think makes no difference.
However, if corporate espionage pays a dividend, it would be a tempting trick in the future.
Death penalty for the Cardinals. Take their assets and give to other teams and give the Expos back to Montreal to keep the same number of MLB clubs. Tie their World Series trophies to the back of a monster truck and drag them on the streets of St Louis.
Nahhh I’m an Astros fan and I respect the cards organization they only deserve a minor punishment especially if it was just correa that did it
As a Astros fan this is old news they should of punished them a year ago, at this point just take away a first or second round draft pick for next season and get it over with
The league didn’t have the official information yet a year ago.
They still don’t.
I now have the under on draft picks. The Cardinals will likely pay a fine.
The damning evidence is that he accessed the profiles of undrafted players in the middle of the draft. There’s no way to frame that other than him accessing it for the cards benefit (even if it was unbeknownst to the higher ups) that being said, I haven’t the foggiest how this will play out. My guess is that people will be disappointed by the lack of severity, but so far every piece of evidence has been worse than the last for the cards
I have nothing to argue on that.
I am a serial draft and develop type. The information collected from any team regarding potential signing bonus information is vital. However, I don’t see any information getting to Manfred that will create a punishment to dis-incentive-ize baseball espionage.
you really need to clean your whole arm off after pulling that out of ur butt.. Very little evidence has been released yet.
Read the end of this article.
stltoday.com/news/local/metro/former-cardinals-sco…
I expect the Astros to receive a first round pick or two from the Cardinals. Manfred needs to send a message.
The commissioner doesn’t have the power to take away draft picks.
Don’t hold your breath on that.. There are 28 other teams that could cry foul from that. Big fine no doubt and possible loss of pick or picks. But those picks going to Astro’s isn’t gonna happen.
Considering the commissioner doesn’t have the power to take away draft picks, I’m expecting a fine of a few million dollars.
Do you want to post this comment one more time? I don’t think 3 is enough.
Explains how the Cardinals kept getting all those prospects year after year. The Red Sox should be investigated too. 🙂
So I guess they should investigate the Cubs and Astros too? They sure have good prospects. Must be corrupt. What a joke . How about the idea that they can asses talent better?