St. Louis Cardinals: Chris Correa’s Salvo at Houston

Monday afternoon Major League Baseball and its commissioner handed down punishment related to what is being called “Hackgate” wherein a member of the then St. Louis Cardinals front office hacked the Houston Astros databases.

Chris Correa, a member of the St. Louis Cardinals front office for numerous years, hacked the databases of the Houston Astros between 2011 and 2014. We know this to be true via Correa’s own admission and now via the punishments levied on Correa and the Cardinals organization.

Our own Zach Gifford broke the news of the punishment for us here at Redbird Rants on Monday. In his post, he shared that the Cardinals must forfeit their two picks of the 2017 draft (which turn out to be their second- and third-round picks since they already forfeited their first-round pick via the signing of Dexter Fowler).

In an also-ran portion of the news, the St. Louis Cardinals must also pay a $2M fine to the Astros. I call this component an “also-ran” since $2M is a drop in the bucket of what the St. Louis Cardinals possess. Moreover, this fine is a one-and-done. Had the fine been levied across a few seasons, then that amount would hurt. One season under the television agreement far washes away this fine.

But wait, there’s now more… In an interesting turn of events, Correa responded to the penalties. Here’s the skinny:

Of note is the fact that Correa insinuates that the wrong team is facing the consequences and alleges that the Astros had hacked the Cardinals databases. Admittedly, and as admitted by Correa, he only knew of the Astros hacking the Cardinals and stealing/using proprietary evaluation techniques by illegally hacking their databases himself.

It gets a touch deeper. Correa says that the Astros General Manager, Assistant General Manager, and- quote- others in the organization were included in emails discussing their actions hacking the St. Louis Cardinals. Was this true or is this just a spurned man attempting to save some face?

Here’s my thought: if Correa had found the Astros hacking via his own illegal hacking, why hadn’t he told anyone else? Would GM Mozeliak or Bill DeWitt, Jr. have been alerted? Wouldn’t they have screamed from the mountain tops throughout the investigations?

In case you forgot, the St. Louis Cardinals organization said little-to-nothing during the investigations. Was this because there was nothing to be said or was this to allow Correa to take the fall? Hoping for the best, I want to believe that the organization’s silence stemmed from Correa actually being the only party involved.

I am terribly inclined to believe that Correa WAS the only Cardinal involved as I just feel that had the Cardinals organization known of his “findings” (if these were true) that they would have gone immediately to the commissioner and received the spoils of this warfare rather than having to lose the spoils being faced today.

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Something else that burns me up about this is the amount of time that Correa spent hacking with little-to-no results. For that reason alone, I’m not upset about HIS penalty. In the same breath then, I find it suspicious that Houston managed to steal a great deal of the Cardinals’ secrets since their organization didn’t seem to benefit much from these secrets during those years.

Is the above an indictment against the Cardinals and their “poor” secrets, an indictment against Correa and his allegations that the Astros were equally hacking, or an indictment against the leadership of the Astros for failing to implement trade secrets?

Look, I’m exceedingly glad this is all over. This is ridiculous on so many fronts and now that burned Correa has voiced his complaints, perhaps the whole ordeal can move behind us. Will the St. Louis Cardinals suffer? Somewhat (unless time proves otherwise in either direction). Will the 2017 season come? Of course.

Next: Five Players Feeling Pressure

Time to move on. Time for pitchers and catchers to report (some fourteen-or-so days from now). Correa should fade away now- banned from baseball for life- and do as he states, “…have no further comment on this matter while incarcerated.”