Posted on 06/16/2015 9:27:27 AM PDT by gwjack
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors are investigating whether front-office officials for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful teams in baseball over the past two decades, hacked into internal networks of a rival team to steal closely guarded information about player personnel.
Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a network of the Houston Astros that housed special databases the team had built, according to law enforcement officials. Internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports were compromised, the officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Why the Astros? An American League team in a different division? Hacking the Pirates or Cubs would make a lot more sense.
Who says, if it is happening, that it is only the Astros?
That Pope guy and his minions are is crooks.....
That Pope guy and his minions are crooks.....
“Why the Astros?”
Read the article ...
Is this going back to when Houston was in the NL?
There is a related article at the New York Times. Apparently the Astros were chosen because of the success that Jeff Luhnow had as an evaluator when he was with the Cardinals. He was hired by the Astros in 2011.
I think this is about the time that Walt Jocketty left St. Louis and ended up in Cincinnati. Also, the Cardinals won the World Series in 2011, LaRussa’s last year managing.
Bill Bellichick works for the Cardinals now?
One of the reasons I am such a big facn of the Cards is their image as an above-board, honest, decent organization.
I really hope this isn't true.
Most of this centers around Jeff Luhnow, who was managed the scouting and player assessments for the Cardinals until he was named the Astro's General Manager in 2011.
Afterward, some Cardinal employees noted that some of the Astro assessments were consistent with what the Cardinals had, and they suspected that Luhnow had taken some proprietary information with him to Houston.
They tried logging in to the Astro's site, and found that Luhnow's old passwords still worked. They should have let it drop at that point, but they started looking at new Astro's information, and leaked it to a rumor website.
Not as bad as what it may seem by the headlines, but still unethical and improper. It may or may not be a crime, but someone will be fired, for sure.
Don’t look now but the Astros are in first place in the AL West and are loaded with young talent!
Hi Repeal,
I wondered about the taking of proprietary information. As I understand it, Luhnow and the several “scouts” he took with him left behind their passwords on the Cardinals server. Some enterprising sleuth with the Cardinals tried the same passwords on the Astros server.
One of the comments compared it to a wife leaving, and leaving her passwords behind. She took no steps to change them, and there is a voyeuristic interest in reading emails from the ex.
Luhnow has been tied to many of the star quality draftees of the Cardinals. The second article refers to Houston’ superior database on Latino players.
I’m surprised it is being investigated by the FBI, instead of filing a civil lawsuit. But then, the entire Astro database would be published.
Last I checked Astros were in first place
Yawn...isn’t this like stealing signals? And who would give a rat’s patootie about stealing the Astro’s info. Ninety Nine percent of scouting reports are useless and the other one percent exists in unanimity across all MLB databases
Doesn’t seem like a big deal, even if it might be illegal.
That said, there are still plenty of trades in MLB where some critical personal information about a player was unknown by the team receiving the player, and a team that trades actively is always looking for more info aside from public stats and medical exams.
Hi Cyman,
I think you are right. It is similar to stealing signs on the field. See my post #1.
The Cardinals and Twins play a rare Tuesday afternoon game today. The Cardinal broadcast led with this statement from MLB:
“The FBI and Justice Department are investigating the St. Louis Cardinals for allegedly obtaining unauthorized access to the Houston Astros’ computer system, which includes proprietary information regarding player personnel and evaluation.
“Major League Baseball has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros’ baseball operations database,” the league said in a statement. “Once the investigative process has been completed by federal law enforcement officials, we will evaluate the next steps and will make decisions promptly.”
More information at the MLB.com site.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/130965874/mlb-comments-on-astros-computer-breach
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