St. Louis Cardinals Still Under Fire for Alleged Data Theft

Evan Drellich, the Astros beat writer for the Houston Chronicle, posted a story today about the St. Louis Cardinals hacking allegations:

Now that the offseason has arrived, the fall and/or winter likely will bring an update in some form from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas on the criminal investigation into the Cardinals’ unauthorized access of Astros information — the hacking scandal that involved the Astros’ database named “Ground Control.”Federal investigators continued to gather information in September and October, according to people familiar with the situation who are unauthorized to speak publicly about it.Source: Investigation continues into Cardinals’ hacking of Astros system

In case any of you thought this problem would just fade into history, nope. It won’t. Not yet anyway.

As Drellich went on to recount in his story, the Cardinals have already covered their backsides to some degree by firing director of scouting Chris Correa in July, after he came clean about it. He copped to gaining access to the Astros’ database of trade information, scouting reports and other sensitive data. But apparently, he wasn’t the only one to access it and the case drags on to see who knew what and when they knew it.

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Correa also did a bit of finger pointing on his way out. He had his lawyer issue a statement that basically accused former Cardinals’ execs who went to Houston with Luhnow of lifting data from the Cardinals’ proprietary database, code-named “Redbird.” Real cloak-and-dagger stuff.

So, the U.S. attorney’s office continues to sniff around for more details while the Cardinals try to clean up their own house via an internal investigation. The latter may yield another scapegoat, probably lower level than Correa. But neither will give anyone satisfaction in the end.

Look, hacking into someone else’s private data is wrong. It’s unethical and a bad look for the Cardinals’ franchise. I don’t condone it, and I’m glad Correa was canned for it. But the hackee should at least make it a challenge for the hacker. Why on earth did the Astros use an old password Luhnow and his crew came up with when they were still with the Cardinals? He may as well have used “password” or “123456.”

Even community college drop outs know better than recycling old passwords, Jeff Luhnow. Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Tighten up your password game, Astros.

Job-hopping executives are bigger problems. There is little that can be done to stop them from taking and sharing sensitive data when they go. Shady information exchanges happen all the time in business, even with non-compete clauses and gag orders.

Look at all the insider trading scandals there are. Baseball is a multi-billion-dollar global umbrella corporation with 30 different independently run subsidiaries. There’s too much money floating around for this not to be a problem in baseball, too. The Cardinals just got caught, and even so I doubt that will change anything.

Next: To Qualify or Not to Qualify John Lackey

In the end, this whole mess seems to be a lot like stealing signs. We may not like it, but we have to live with it and do our best to protect ourselves from it.

Like not recycling old passwords.