The Cardinals Got Off Light for the Astros Hack
It wouldn’t be fair to refer to MLB’s disciplinary record as toothless. There exists a relatively tough PED policy, and as of not all that long ago, there also exists a relatively tough policy on domestic violence. And last summer, the Red Sox were dealt a decently severe penalty for international signing violations, even though their behavior wasn’t exactly unique to them. The Red Sox were hit hard. Individual players have been hit hard when they’ve crossed the line. There’s not a consistent history of the commissioner being too light.
What we have now, though, are two penalties that have drawn similar reactions within the league. Many teams and team-people thought the Padres got off way too easy when A.J. Preller was suspended a month for withholding medical information in trade talks. And now, there’s a similar consensus belief about the penalty dealt to the Cardinals for Chris Correa’s repeated hacks of the Astros. Everyone had been waiting for a while to see how baseball would deal with an unprecedented conduct violation. In the end, the Cardinals are out a couple draft picks.
Baseball itself had to wait until it could impose any sanctions. Federal investigators got first priority, and only over the weekend did we learn a final ruling was close. Correa as an individual had already been given a jail sentence. Here are the full details of MLB’s discipline:
- Cardinals send Astros $2 million
- Cardinals send Astros draft picks No. 56 and 75 (top two picks available)
- Correa placed on the permanently-ineligible list
There’s nothing surprising about the last bullet — Correa wasn’t going to get another baseball job again. There was more mystery about the first two bullets. Nathaniel Grow wrote about possible penalties all the way back in June of 2015, and this is in keeping with his analysis. There was never going to be, say, a postseason ban. There would be a lost job, or lost jobs, and there would be a fine. As Grow wrote, “the commissioner cannot fine an MLB team more than $2 million for any single offense.” That not being sufficient, MLB has also taken a couple picks. All a draft pick is to a team is money in a different, more human-like form.
I think it was inevitable it would come down to money and picks. It was simply a question of how much, and based on baseball’s investigation, Correa acted alone. As such, they didn’t want to treat the Cardinals too harshly, but what’s happened is that they probably went too soft as a consequence. I don’t personally know that many people in the game, but they’ve had the same response. Buster Olney knows a lot more people in the game. He used the words “shockingly light.” While this case was unprecedented, within major-league baseball circles, that’s all the more reason to err toward something tougher. By definition, this case was going to set a precedent, and the response suggests this isn’t a strong-enough deterrent.
To be clear, Correa is in jail. That’s a good deterrent. And there’s no history of picks being taken from one team and given to another, compensation picks aside. This is a first, and we all know how organizations value young players higher than ever. What really colors things in this case is that, from the outside, it looks like the Cardinals get to benefit from having already surrendered a high pick to sign Dexter Fowler. While it’s impossible to say what might’ve happened under other circumstances, it’s likely the Cardinals would’ve had to give up their top two picks no matter what. The penalty, then, could be considered reduced, because the Cardinals opted to sign a valuable free agent. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, and as you probably already knew, draft picks, on average, lose their value fast.
The best draft picks are the earliest draft picks. That’s how it’s supposed to work, but the historical drop-off is extreme, after the earlier part of the first round. The Cardinals are forfeiting a pick in the back half of the second round, and then the last pick between the second and third rounds. Nothing is ever perfectly demonstrated by a single anecdote, but consider the Rays draft in 2011, when they had 12 of the first 89 picks. They also had none of the first 23. From that whole crop, the Rays have gotten Blake Snell, and then no one better than Mikie Mahtook. The picks the Cardinals are losing simply aren’t that valuable, and any real value, anyway, wouldn’t materialize for a number of years. You could estimate that, overall, this violation has cost the Cardinals an employee and something like $5 – 10 million.
Maybe that’s okay with you — I don’t know. I can’t exactly say what’s fair, because this had never happened, so there isn’t an outline of how to proceed. It’s also impossible to determine to what extent the Cardinals organization benefited from the information Correa took. It’s not like he kept it all to himself, and it’s not like he was un-influenced by what he saw. On the other side of the same coin, we don’t know how badly the Astros were hurt. Yet I’m also not sure how much that matters. At the end of the day, this was one team employee hacking into another team’s database. Said employee repeated his act dozens and dozens of times. Baseball would’ve been under pressure to send a forceful message, and it would appear, in that regard, they’ve failed.
I’m not sure how many draft picks would’ve been sufficient. There might’ve been the additional opportunity to give the Astros some or all of the Cardinals’ international signing pool. A small fine won’t do much to affect an organization, so you have to go after the pipeline of talent. Losing two non-premium picks doesn’t sting. The Fowler consideration makes it all worse. The Cardinals were never going to get completely and utterly torn apart, but all this is is a bump in the road, following the first known hack in major-league history. I don’t know how effectively this is going to prevent a second.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Amen Jeff! I find it very hard to believe nobody else in the Cardinals FO knew where Correa was getting his information. He admitted in court to sharing it with “Collegues”. MLB just can’t really prove that connection, and doesn’t want to try. It’s under the rug where they want it…
Not even a first. Crazy.
It would have been better if they took away all their future 13th round picks. That’s where they’ve had the most success.
Not a fan of another AL team getting more draft picks. Wish the Twins had been hacked.
Also, terrible that they don’t even lose a first round pick. Shockingly light is correct. They basically aren’t paying a price at all.
If they can’t prove Correa didn’t act alone…what do you expect? That guy is going to jail…
Respondeat superior.
Yeah this right here is the problem. I wish the A’s were hacked if the payout is 2 top 75 draft picks. FFS I would take that trade all day long. Im putting it out there right now, any team that wants to embarrass OAK now in return for 2 draft picks later has my blessing…
“Those who would give up essential privacy in return for 2nd and 3rd round draft picks deserve neither privacy nor draft picks. Now a top 5 pick in the first round is a different story altogether…”
-Benjamin Franklin-
If, based on the penalty, you wish your team had been hacked then, logically, you believe that the punishment is worth more than the damage to the organization. Thus, you must believe the punishment was severe.
No its that I think getting hacked and having a few insider secrets to revealed is a small price to pay for extra draft picks and the bonus pool flexibility that brings. I think the Astros are getting a kings ransom considering how it effected them. This has nothing to do with whether the Cards were punished enough, and has everything to do with the Astros being rewarded for poor cyber security.
Weren’t teams unwilling to trade with them briefly after all this?
I’m surprised anyone finds this to be light. The pool values for the two picks the Cardinals lost equal up to a first round pick, which is worth 8-10M by itself, right? That plus the $2M fine seems more significant than the Bosox penalty. Plus, it doesn’t seem like the Cardinals actually benefitted from the info Correa stole based on the articles from the last couple days. They broke it down in pretty good detail in the Houston Chronicle and the Cardinals only picked one guy Correa looked at- and he turned out to have a bad arm anyway after Correa was looking at his medicals.
I’ll bet no one would think twice about this penalty if it came against a team like the Marlins that hasn’t been competitive recently.
You can’t just add the pool money of the two picks and equate it to the value of a first round pick. Thats not how it works.
True about pool money, but looking at the graph of average WAR (either career or first six years) vs. draft position leads to a similar conclusion. Look at the graph here – http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/the_draft_and_w.php
It’s tough to pinpoint exactly, but the #56 and #75 picks sure look to approximate the value of the #19 pick.
I was surprised that people will see that this light. The value of the pool to separate the Cardinals lost in the first round are equal, worth 8-10 million better, right? This, more than $ 2 million in the United States, it seems more important than the value bosox. Besides, I think that really benefited cardinals Korea stole data on the basis of this article in the last days. They broke into this in detail in the Houston Chronicle and the cardinals elect only one type of look Correa- and it turned out that I still have bad hands after Korea saw its status.
I bet that people will not think of this question if against a team, and the glass is not new competitors.
The penalty was light because it was the Cardinals and the Cards are important. That’s the way it works, in case you hadn’t noticed. Think anything will happen to the University of North Carolina for its horrific cheating? Very little, to be sure.
some evidence would be nice?
The penalty was light because it was the Cardinals and the Cards are important. That’s the way it works, in case you hadn’t noticed. Think anything will happen to the University of North Carolina for its horrific cheating? Very little, to be sure.
The worst part is they’re still eligible for Competitive Balance picks. I’d love for MLB to explain how the Cardinals are blacked out in eight states (MO, IL, IA, TN, AR, OK, KY and MS) but are still considered a “small” market.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/baseball_markets.shtml
The Competitive Balance teams are given to the 10 teams with the smallest markets and the 10 teams with the lowest revenue. Obviously there is going to be a lot of overlap in those groups, so there are ~12 teams total
This year 14 teams received Competitive Balance picks. Nate Silver (after a lengthy study for Baseball Prospectus) determined St. Louis to have the 12th smallest market in MLB. So it should not surprise you that STL is occasionally rewarded with a Competitive Balance pick.
Can I get a link to the Nate Silver write up?
“LINK TO A NATE SILVER WRITE UP, HEY-OHHHHHH”
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6225 This is Part 2, which contains his conclusions. Part 1 is also online.
That study also found that Atlanta has the 3rd biggest market (after the two NYC teams), so I would take it with a grain of salt.
This is almost exactly what Jim Bowden predicted the penalty would be a year ago.
http://www.espn.com/blog/the-gms-office/insider/post?id=12034
I mean, 26 & 31, is not ‘almost exactly’ 56 & 75.
Damn, I knew he’d get something right eventually. What do they say about blind squirrels and nuts?
Even a blind pig finds an acorn
GoodellBot is malfunctioning.
According the to the court documents, Correa plead guilty to 5 counts of unauthorized access and he accessed the Astro’s systems 48 times. So, couldn’t the Commissioner fine the Cardinals $2 million for each of these (either $10M or $96M max)?
Ehh, this was a tough one. If there’s not enough evidence to prove who besides Correa knew then, I’m not sure what else could be done. If it was in fact rogue, how were the Cardinals FO supposed to know? Sounds like to me, he felt incompetent.
I’m not really sure it matters if anyone else knew. Correa was a high-ranking employee in the Cards system who stole intellectual property from a rival organization by hacking into their network. That information was accessed with an eye toward giving the Cards a competitive advantage over the Astros as well as the rest of the league. That seems like enough to put the whammy on the Cards to me.
In weighing this decision, MLB should have been considering (1) compensating the Astros and (2) deterring future corporate espionage. I think the decision probably succeeded in compensating the Astros, though it’s hard to quantify how much they lost due to Correa’s actions, but as Jeff points out, it may have failed on the second point, though one could argue that the criminal and civil repercussions for an individual are significant enough to dissuade this behavior in the future. At the very least, individuals will be motivated to do a much better job of covering their tracks. Correa was an amateur, really. If he’d been more competent, he’d probably never have been caught, and the Astros probably never would have even known their system was breached.
The organization is still responsible for the actions of the people they hire and employ even if no one else knows about the actions or the information gained. The team deserved to be punished regardless of whether anyone else knew anything.
Sure they are. That’s why they were punished. The fact that is was a rogue employee and they can prove that he didn’t actually benefit the Cardinals is why the punishment isn’t as severe as some of you are supposing.
But he told “colleagues” in the Cardinals organization and they didn’t do anything to try to stop it. He wasn’t “rouge”, he had implicit approval from his “colleagues”.
I wonder how many other instances of this stuff is happening. Also I understand its a business, and business crimes tend to be looked upon more strictly but the prison sentence seems quite stiff.
I wonder what the Astros’ division rivals think of the Astros getting the extra picks…
Yeah, this is my major complaint with this. There was horrible negligence on Luhnow’s part, the damage they suffered from the subsequent crime was negligible, now his team is getting a decent leg up on his 4 main competitors. I’m OK with the Cardinals losing the 2 picks, but I don’t see why they should’ve gone to the Astros.
Fuck this Nonsense, born in OAK… 3 first overall picks is enough no more cherries for the team that lost 110+ games in the years they were hacked.
The Astros lost bargaining power when their inside information was stolen by a member of another team and also lost credibility throughout baseball when some of those emails were made public. The Astros’ division and league competitors benefited at the time, even if they didn’t have any involvement.
I understand if they’re upset now but let’s not pretend they didn’t benefit then.
Except for them to lose bargaining power it would have to be relevant current deals, where as when the leak happened it was all data from like two years earlier so it really didnt help anyone much to have it at that point.
It’s just absurd giving the picks to Houston.
1. The situation could have been avoided if Houston’s new hire didn’t continue to use basically the same password he used on his previous job.
2. There’s not any evidence that the Astros were harmed in any way.
But now they get two pretty good draft picks for poor password hygiene, or whatever Luhnow called it.
Except their proprietary data was stolen and used to advantage a competitor, they were obviously harmed by their trade discussions being leaked to the internet. The Cardinals obviously benefit from their Scouting Director having access to two teams worth of evaluations before drafts.
I think the Astros were harmed more than the Cardinals benefitted. Those trade discussion leaks on deadspin must have really made things uncomfortable for Luhnow both inside the organization and with other GMs. If anyone read the breakdown of Correa’s actions in the last couple of days though, its hard to see where the Cardinals really benefitted.
Except most other front offices operate in a similar manner, and were probably sympathetic to the Astros being outed more then anything else. Also at the point when the data was released it was previous information that wasnt relevant to any current negotiations the team was in. I would say that damages, outside of public embarrassment would be hard to justify, even if you were looking at the value of competitive advantage the Cards gained it sounds negligible, and never effected the Astros based off the team record at the time.
Indeed, I think the key is that proprietary data was stolen. The game is becoming more numbers/stats based than ever before. To steal the evaluation tools (let alone the conclusion of the evaluations) sets a front office back a lot. Likely millions of dollars of investment into hiring people (and their formulas/evaluations) all gone.
We have seen absolutely zero evidence that the data or evaluations were used by the Cardinals.
Even if they were used, Luhnow worked for the Cardinals for nearly a decade. He didn’t go to the Astros and become a completely new person — the Cardinals had a very good idea what skills he thought were valuable and the type of player he would draft, because that’s what he had been doing with the Cardinals.
It would be much easier to argue they were damaged if someone like the Angels had done the hacking.
Actually, Correa reviewed Astros scouting on Marco Gonzales before the Cardinals drafted him. Additionally, he reviewed all the draft boards the year the Astros picked immediately after the Cardinals. So yeah, they used the information.
How did they use it? Were they not going to draft Gonzales until they read the Astros report?
Again, I’m all for punishing the Cardinals for the act of hacking. In fact, I don’t think they were punished enough.
I have a problem with rewarding the Astros for being hacked.
I have a problem with rewarding the Astros for being hacked.
That much of it is a fair point. Sending the picks to the Astros actually serves to punish the rest of the league.
First of all, we don’t know to what degree any of the information accessed led to a Cardinals decision about Marco Gonzales or any other player. Second, to “use” the information, the Cards didn’t have to make a decision that they would not have absent the information. Even if all he did was confirm the Cards scouting evaluations, he still “used” the info. from the Astros. Third, the breach was not limited to scouting evaluations. Correa had access to private e-mails of members of the Astros’ front office, which could have given him all sorts of useful intel about the Astros baseball operations that could have been used to the benefit of the Cardinals.
That’s the one way the Cardinals benefitted, at least in theory, because he checked the Astros’ reports on Gonzales’ medicals. The other players the Correa checked weren’t drafted by the Cardinals. Gonzales turned out to have a bad arm anyway, but that’s beside the point. How much is that worth though?
“the Cardinals had a very good idea what skills he thought were valuable and the type of player he would draft, because that’s what he had been doing with the Cardinals.”
-Well maybe that is somewhat true, but I’d think that if it was completely true, Correa would not have stolen the Astros intellectual property.
Which is why the Thief should be punished. If your store has improper security, and is robbed, the insurance company wont pay out if you were negligent. The same applies to the Astros, negligence allowed them to be hacked, and now they are being rewarded for having the password for the data base be the equivalent of PASSWORD.
You’re throwing around the word “negligence” rather cavalierly. It has a very specific legal definition and implications, so whether the behavior of the Astros front office rises to the level of negligence is entirely unanswered, and probably will remain so. Was the Astros system security far below the threshold used by every other MLB organization? If not, are other MLB organizations that get hacked “asking” for it?
Furthermore, even if the behavior of Luhnow and the rest of the Astros front office was “negligent”, I don’t believe that would bar them from any recovery, legally. It’s not as if the Astros gave the information to the Cardinals willingly. If someone picks your pocket because you weren’t paying attention, it’s still theft, and you’re still entitled to compensation. Whether or not a theft occurred has nothing to do with whether the victim of the theft took the proper precautions to protect their property. If somebody takes your property without your consent, it’s theft.
Whether an insurer makes certain exceptions for coverage of theft has nothing to do with this instance of theft. We know what was stolen. We know who stole it. If someone robs your store, and you know who the thief is, you’re still entitled to compensation from the thief, no matter how lax or “negligent” your security.
And if the Astros want to sue the Cardinals, then fine. That is neither here nor there when you’re talking about MLB as an organization compensating the Astros for getting hacked. Every team that didn’t get hacked is now at a disadvantage compared to the Astros in the next draft. How does that make any sense? Punishing the Cardinals makes sense. Rewarding the Astros above the other teams in the league, why does that make sense?
MLB rules prevent one team from suing another. Otherwise, the Astros would have sued the Cards already. MLB’s decision is substituting for the Astros’ legal recourse against the Cards. It is very much “here and there” when you’re talking about the amount of compensation awarded by the league.
I am fairly sure they could sue the employee, if they chose, but there’d be little point to it. The idea that the Astros should get compensation, to me is fundamentally ridiculous. If you think otherwise, again, explain? Giving draft picks to them, where they are then picking players that every other team would’ve been otherwise able to pick, how did the other 28 teams benefit from the Cardinals’ hacking, so they should be set at a disadvantage compared to the Astros?
Correa stole information that the Astros had used considerable resources in attaining. Some of that information was leaked publicly. I think it’s quite a stretch to suggest that the Astros suffered no harm as a result of Correa’s many breaches. Even if the Astros suffered no harm, the Cards likely obtained some benefit (otherwise why bother breaching the system at all), and they need to compensate the Astros for that benefit. Quantifying the harms and benefits here are hard, but given the amount of money teams invest in drafting and player development, I don’t find it ridiculous that Correa’s breaches could have caused millions of dollars worth of harms and benefits. You don’t have any idea how Correa used the information he accessed or how that might have harmed the Astros and benefited the Cards.
One draft pick they are happy they didnt get, and the embarrassment of the leak. It is fairly well laid out what he was doing and what he gained. I mean how could this data breach effect the Astros in the middle of an intentional 100+ loss season to have trade notes from a year and a half earlier leak other then embarrassment. Its not as if the guy was shopping data to every other team. So basically the only chances for damages to occur would be in transactions between STL and HOU. How else could this have damaged the organization? Is it fair to give a competitive advantage to one team out of five in a division, where none of the other teams in the division benefited from or participated in the violation? I dont have a problem with STL being punished for the transgressions of a member of the organization, but it is unfair to give the Astros a bonus for being careless.
But if they had, then the Cardinals would have been able to countersue for the Astros’ hacking of the Cardinals. Correa still claims that he has proof of that. He said so in court and he said so in a press release today.
We should take this talk to reddit conspiracy theory. Pretty sure they would say the Astros were in on it from the beginning.
Nice victim-blaming.
If I leave the front door to my house wide open, and someone walks in and steals stuff, am I a victim deserving of no blame?
Your hypothetical robber still has no right either to enter the house or take anything there. The level of security preventing entry is irrelevant. The hypothetical robber still knows it’s illegal. How easy it is to commit a crime is irrelevant.
And that’s why Correa is in jail, and the Cardinals are being punished. We’ve done that.
Indeed…and I brought my response up because your original point was regarding:
(1) Houston being at “fault”, and
(2) An alleged lack of harm
Punish the robber, dont reward the negligent owner.
This isn’t rewarding. It’s an attempt to make the Astros whole. The debate is just whether this is enough to compensate for what was stolen.
No its way way more then was stolen. I read the leak when it happened. It was sooooo boring and not relevant to anything currently going on in baseball to read those notes. The Astros had a minor thing happen that they no longer give two shits about, and they get something they want back. Sounds awesome for them.
Basically you’re conflating social judgment and legal judgment. If you want to poke fun at the Astros brass at a social level, go for it. That however has zero relevance for criminal judgment (unless you’re saying the lower level of security is somehow a legal invitation for an individual to enter and take whatever he/she wants).
No, he shouldn’t be blamed. He should have common sense though. The Cardinals had access to his passwords used while he was with the Cardinals, and when he switched to the Astros, he doesn’t change his passwords? It isn’t his fault in any way, but it is reckless on his part and could’ve and should’ve been prevented.
Its Negligent which is something that he can be held at fault for.
A better example would be if you rented from a landlord and had access to the passcode you used to get into your garage. But he really only had access to the passcode if he went out of his way to look it up. And then you moved to a new house and you used the same passcode. And then a few months later your previous landlord, after using admin access to get your old passcode, swung by your house and tried the passcode and it worked. Afterwords, he proceeded to use that passcode to break into your house 40+ times to steal your stuff.
So yeah, you should’ve probably picked a new passcode. But my first thought wold be… wow, your landlord is a giant douche.
1) If you don’t lock your door and someone steals your stuff, it’s still theft.
2) The fact that Correa was too dumb to gain a benefit from his theft, still means it was theft.
Exactly.
Just like how any players who used illegal PEDs at any time since April of 1971 were cheating, regardless of whether they gained a benefit.
Fair points, and Correa is serving time as a federal felon for that theft. Those points don’t inform much about the proper compensation from the Cardinals to the Astros, however.
I’m on dirtbag’s side here. Well, other than I wouldn’t say “absurd”. But if someone offered me a 2nd and a 3rd in return for 46 peaks at my scouting reports, I think I’d jump at that. What have my scouts and analysts seen that his haven’t? And if there was something different, why would I think mine are right and his wrong?
This. Teams would make this trade every time! (review my draft board and give me your 2nd and 3rd round picks). If teams really valued an extra opinion this much then they would just hire additional scouts by the dozen.
I’d be curious to know if the Astros pay $2M for their entire scouting and drafting staff.
And negligence can play a part in compensation. If I’m partly complicit in my loss, that does cut into what the other party ‘owes’ me.
I’d say going to jail is pretty preventative…
Not for teams. Evidently a person as highly ranked in an organization as Correa wasn’t enough to implicate a team for the purposes of actions. Basically this tells teams that as long as they keep an espionage limited to a person or two, they can basically avoid any harsh penalties.
That would be true in a gang or a mob, where any one person would be willing to commit a crime to go to jail. But for high ranking members of a franchise, people with white collar jobs, giving up their lifestyle for the team and willing to go to jail? It would be hard to find someone willing and able to do that in any franchise.
People will do anything for enough money, and teams have lots of it.
Yes, but once a team directs an individual to engage in a criminal act – by paying them a lot of money or not – then it is a collaborative, organizational crime, totally different than what happened here with the Cardinals.
So the feds should be looking for the offshore bank accounts that Correa will have waiting for him once he gets out of jail?
Not sure the scenario you paint applies in reality. Who could these teams recruit to do their dirty work if the individuals know that the penalty is prison time and a lifetime ban from baseball?
Make the interns do it! (kidding)
“wasn’t enough to implicate a team for the purposes of actions”
That’s arguing against a strawman, because the commissioner did order the Cardinals to provide compensation to the Astros. The question at hand is how culpable the Cardinals are as an organization and if the punishment/compensation matches that culpability.
If the team didn’t order him to do it or know about it, then it’s logical that the team’s culpability is less than if it had.
I’m with asreitz. What human being is going to go to jail for the good of his baseball organization?
Someone just did, apparently on his own initiative without prodding.
No. Richie was asking what human being would risk going to jail at the behest of the organization. Once you say he did it “on his own initiative without prodding” you’re talking about something else altogether.
For the “good of,” probably nil to none. But if one accepts there are people out there willing to be “fall-guys” for athletes in sketchy situations (with what I imagine is under-the-table payment), it can’t be that a stretch to think people wouldn’t do the same role for a corporate person instead of a single human person. Corporations pay better.
I think this is exactly right. I have 2 gripes with Jeff’s piece (bear in mind I’m a Cardinals’ fan, so if you want to take what I say with a grain of salt, fair enough).
(1) He assumes MLB was going to penalize STL their top 2 picks this year regardless of whether they signed Fowler. But why make that assumption? Is Manfred really that ham-handed? Couldn’t he have been prepared to penalize the team either a 1st round pick (which they don’t have this year) or their next 2 picks?
(2) The key to the punishment hinges on whether Correa was acting rogue. As Jeff acknowledges, Correa already received a max penalty of sorts – years in prison and a lifetime ban from baseball. That would certainly deter anyone from pulling shit like this in the future. And of course the Cards may have benefitted – even unwittingly – from the info Correa gleaned, which explains why they were stripped of 2 high draft picks and a huge cut of their signing bonus $ (their pool of money to spend on draft picks is now about one-half of the next lowest team in baseball, which means they’re pretty well screwed for this June’s draft).
Beyond that, what would a stiffer penalty accomplish in terms of deterrence? I suppose maybe the Cards should have been more diligent in their hiring and promotion practices – not given a maniac like Correa the title and the duties he had. Nevertheless, the evidence seems to indicate the Cards were in the dark about his activities, so I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what the Cardinals would do differently if you took away further or more meaningful draft picks.
As an Astros fan, I think the Cardinals probably should have lost a legitimate first round pick for more significant deterrence. But the consensus thinking was that MLB would make the picks disappear, not that they would be transferred to the Astros, so that is a pleasant surprise. I can certainly understand why fans of other teams would dislike that. The penalty is too low for the Cardinals, but too high for the 28 teams not involved, particularly the 4 in the AL West.
I also just wanted to comment that the point about the Cardinals signing bonus pool being half of the next lowest team isn’t as relevant as you make it seem, since a large portion of that is due to them signing Fowler, and has nothing to do with this penalty.
This! Its a big FU to Oak Sea Tex and Laa, when the Astros already gamed the system by signing 0 FA and having at one point a 34MM payroll. I mean the absolute non commitment to fielding a competitive team so you can snag high draft picks is something constantly talked about now, and the Astros are public enemy number one when it comes to losing on purpose in the last decade with no other team doing it so overtly.
This is true – a chunk was taking out b/c of Fowler (sorry, I wasn’t trying to mislead; I mentioned Fowler earlier in my post and assumed we were all dealing with the same info). But other teams signed free agents this winter and lost draft picks, and their position is not nearly as precarious as the Cardinals’, so it’s still a pretty significant hit.
I don’t see the evidence, though, that the #19 overall pick is much if any more valuable than the two picks that the Cardinals did lose. Look at the value chart that Jeff links in the post. There is a huge drop-off in the value of picks from the very top, but a lot of that happens going from the top few overall picks to the middle of the first round. The transferred pick wasn’t going to be a top 5 overall pick.
Agreed. My quick google search on MLB scouting director found a salary range of 30K – 100K. Correa got a sentence of 4 years in jail. What reasonable person is going to risk spending that amount of time in jail? Most people wouldn’t be willing to break the law as part of their job description.
The article is about how a 2nd and 3rd round pick does not come close to equaling a 1st round pick.
And how it seems like ineffective punishment to have let STL receive a lesser penalty for their hacking, due to them willingly adding a premium player to their team.
So it’s fair to assume that the punishment was NOT either their 1st round pick or the next two picks…
(1) It doesn’t make sense in a disciplinary way to decide a punishment is worth a team’s first round pick, but on one condition, if STL willingly gives that up in a free agent signing, then the punishment becomes the next two picks.
-At worst Manfred wanted to take away their top two picks, essentially allowing them to spend a 3rd round pick to sign Fowler.
-Slightly less worse he wanted to take away top two picks, and slid them down unthinkingly when STL spent their 1st round pick.
I’m not asserting that Manfred was thinking “let’s take either a 1st round pick or 2 picks from the 2nd round.” I don’t know what Manfred was thinking. I’m just saying we have as much or more reason to assume that as we do Jeff’s assumption (“let’s take the Cardinals’ first two picks regardless of slot”), which strikes me as absurd. I mean, if Manfred really wanted to take a 1st round pick it’d be easy to do so – just take the Cards’ #1 pick in 2018 (and since teams no longer forfeit those picks by signing a free agent, the Cards couldn’t game the system and give it away).
“The article is about how a 2nd and 3rd round pick does not come close to equaling a 1st round pick.”
Not really. The post doesn’t dwell on that point, and the linked articles show a pretty big drop-off in pick value after the very top of the first round.
Here’s more detailed quantification – http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-net-value-of-draft-picks/ . It stops at pick #50, but shows the #15 to #20 pick as worth about $21 million and #50 as worth about $13 million. Extrapolating that out further, it’s not clear that the combined value of the #56 and #75 picks is worth much if any less than the #19 pick.
“While it’s impossible to say what might’ve happened under other circumstances, it’s likely the Cardinals would’ve had to give up their top two picks no matter what.”
Based off of what? This is wild speculation, and you don’t really have anything to base it off of
.
Yes, that was a really odd assumption on Jeff’s part. Rany Jazayerli speculated the penalty was likely a 1st round pick OR the next 2 picks, and since the Cards didn’t have a 1st round pick, they took the next 2. That’s a far more plausible scenario then assuming that Manfred is lunkheaded enough to think, “just take their first two picks, doesn’t matter what round.”
The Cardinals are of course legendary in their tradition of doing things the right way. Gotta figure that played a role in this. This Correa fellow probably deceived his way into their organization as he is antithetical to everything the Cardinals stand for. In my opinion, the Cardinals are as much a victim in all this as anyone and these penalties are way too harsh.
troll
he speaks for america
No they are responsible, even incidentally, if they didnt exert proper oversight of their employees.
“I don’t know how effectively this is going to prevent a second.”
Do you think that’s even the intent? I don’t. Chris Correa’s in jail and barred from the sport; future rogue executives are on notice. The Cardinals got some unknown (and unknowable) amount of competitive advantage, and this is an attempt to undo that. Seems like the appropriate end of the story.
The key distinction you’re burying here, Jeff, is that MLB (and the FBI) concluded Correa acted on his own. In the event that a team decides in the future to direct its employees to engage in corporate espionage, we’ll have a different case on our hands, and we’ll see what MLB does to deter that kind of thing. But this thing wasn’t that kind of thing. The deterrent has already been handed down by a federal district court.
This is 100% correct. Everything flows from the determination that Correa acted alone and that the criminality was not organizational. This is why Correa got a max penalty of sorts and the Cards got a lighter penalty for whatever information they may or may not have received from Correa’s actions.
Right, this is why the comparison with the Red Sox or Padres are poor ones. There was not some lone employee in those cases that falsified the shared medical records or that conspired to get around the international signing limits….those were organizational strategies involving multiple people in the front office. The Boston penalty seems about right: they lost the players they cheated to sign (because they couldn’t have signed them if they hadn’t cheated) and then lost the right to sign any players the next year as actual punishment (having to give back what you stole is not punishment). The Padres weren’t actually punished at all.
I am totally ok with the cards losing the picks even though the appearance is skewed since apparently no one currently with the organization was involved, but I also feel its not fair to give the Astros 2 extra draft picks for what essentially was more embarrassing then anything else. I feel like by giving the Astros picks, MLB is punishing the rest of the AL west for not being a dumbass that never changes passwords when changing jobs. I mean the way he got hacked its a little on him, and I dont think what Correa did effected the Astros in any way other then PR, and you could argue that they received positive sympathetic PR, as the victim. I just feel like its unfair to give a team that already tanked its way to a record three consecutive first overall picks an extra two now that they finally pick lower, as a reward for a minor doxing that is at least partially there own fault for having woefully inept cyber security, which allowed the incursion.
Can’t keep kids out of the cookie jar if all they get is a few minutes in a corner if they get caught.
While I admit it is right that Correa is going to jail, a harsher deterrent definitely should have been handed down or another organization (possibly even a rogue within that organization) will rationalize committing the same crimes. The potential benefits definitely seem to outweigh the punishment.
“The potential benefits definitely seem to outweigh the punishment.”
“Exactly,” nodded Chris Correa, from prison. “This was worth it and I am glad I did this.”
Another consideration here is the question of how Chris Carpenter will explain this to his son?
Given that the penalty was entirely sent to the Astros, it would appear to be Manfred’s definition of real damages. Given that, I would have expected an equally damaging punitive damage to the league (i.e. not benefiting another team). As it stands, the rest of baseball is not really compensated for any benefit the team received from stolen information and the Cardinals come out basically net neutral….as you noted, not really a deterrent.
“…and based on baseball’s investigation, Correa acted alone.”
SHOCKING…I thought the investigation would prove the Cards asked him to do it and have it recorded on tape…lol the truth would hurt “the brand” too much so he acted alone.
Keep in mind the FBI came to the same conclusion. You think they give two shits about the Cardinals’ brand?
Is it possible that Correa had no idea how illegal this was, and it’s unlikely anyone else will do something like this of questionable value and such an extreme cost?
BRIEF MOMENTS IN INTERNET DEBATE HISTORY
“Is it possible that Correa had no idea how illegal this was”
A: No.
THIS HAS BEEN BRIEF MOMENTS IN INTERNET DEBATE HISTORY
In the last couple of decades, at least, inconsistent application of penalties and favoritism have been a consistent theme coming from the Commissioner’s Office. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s frequent enough so that this doesn’t appear to be at all aberrant. One quick note about the Cardinal’s sacrifice–one was the freebie competitive balance pick that most of the league’s teams don’t even qualify for.
I’m a Cardinals fan and when I heard about the penalty, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. This could’ve been a lot worse from the Cardinals’ perspective.
I guess it’s as bad or worse to spend over the luxury tax limit or international bonus pools than it is to have a high ranking employee hacking into another teams database countless times or having separate medical records for all of your players.
Chris Correa is in a Federal Penitentiary and, once he finally gets out, he can never work in baseball again in his life. Call me crazy, but from a strictly deterrence perspective I don’t think there’s anything more to worry about.
As for this sentence: “While it’s impossible to say what might’ve happened under other circumstances, it’s likely the Cardinals would’ve had to give up their top two picks no matter what.” I don’t follow. Why “likely” and why “top two picks no matter what”? On what basis is this statement being made? I saw no basis in the article itself, and can imagine none.
I believe that without the Fowler signing, the Cardinals would have simply lost their #1 pick and its large attendant pool allocation (between $2M and $2.5M or so). The pair of picks they DID lose amounts to almost exactly the same total pool amount — and since the 2012 change in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, total pool money in the June draft is far more important that the pick numbers.
While I agree that the sentence is more light than heavy, it’s hardly unreasonable. And the Greybar Hotel should suffice as a deterrent.
Based on what has been revealed in the case, this is simply an act by a rogue employee of the Cardinals. As such, the Cardinals would appear to only be guilty of failure to supervise. That being the case, the penalty seems quite harsh.
Let’s hypothetically assume that Jeff Sullivan conducts some research and comes up with an innovative new metric that is used to evaluate players, and Jeff and Fangraphs earn many accolades for the new metric. Then assume that later it is discovered that Jeff developed the metric by hacking into the baseball prospectus database, and that Fangraphs was unaware of the hacking. What punishment would be appropriate for Fangraphs?
The additional revenues that Fangraphs enjoyed and/or BP lost as a result of Jeff stealing BP’s metric.
Does that deter fangraphs from doing it again? I think the punishment has to significantly outweigh the actual and potential gain. In this case, the Cardinals didn’t gain much of anything. What? 20K in value maybe? They needed to get punished 10X-20X that value and they did.
Punishes every other team in the league along with the STL.
No it doesn’t. Those pick would have been made by STL anyway, there is negligible effect on other teams derived from HOU getting the 2 players and STL not having them. Its no more than a bad trade would shift talent.
Why do the Astros get draft picks? So you are rewarded if you get hacked? I don’t understand that at all.
You’re rewarded because your IP was stolen and used against you. there is material harm here. Its not unlike a tech company who sues for damages.
Seems like the Cards out manuvered Manfred.
Aquiring Fowler seems like a shrewd move.
The penalities will hurt,but they could have been much worse.
I was sitting here wondering if the Cardinals had considered the possibility of losing top picks as part of the punishment, and so pushed ahead on the Fowler signing figuring that they might lose their #1 pick anyway as a penalty.
In all likelihood this did not occur. It’s not like the commish was like, “Well, we were gonna penalize a #1 and #2, but since they don’t have a #1, let’s just make it a #2 and #3!” He knows the value of a 1st rounder IMMENSELY outweighs that of a 3rd rounder. He could delay the #1 until they actually had one, or (more likely) made them surrender a #2 and #3 *in lieu of* a #1.
This is an outside-the-box penalty, but I think a 2017-18 off-season “transfer ban” would have been a fair punishment. It’s an effective punishment that works well in a different sport sport/economy (world soccer) and punishes the team in the short and medium term. It seems that Manfred’s goal was the “repay” the Astros for the information that was stolen. The Astros could have been given the Cardinals entire international signing budget (plus perhaps a draft pick) and the “transfer ban” aspect would have been the Cardinals being unable to make any off-season acquisitions (trade or FA) for the next off-season.
Just a rogue employee huh? Incredible that anyone would believe that.
It’s pretty egregious.
I guess we HAVE learned recently that the FBI is pretty easy to manipulate…
Well, Correa was a rogue employee, or the FBI was outsmarted by some other culpable Cardinal employees/executives, or the FBI is in cahoots with some other culpable Cardinal employees/executives.
I find the first premise much more tenable than the other two. I don’t believe in conspiracies. Corruption, maybe. But not conspiracies. So, knowing that the criminal justice system went after one guy and one guy only, tell me how you suspect it would work, exactly, this idea that other bumbling St. Louis personnel were in on this idiotic crime.
Baseball so does not care about cheating, but then again neither do other major sports.
Its all over the place, not just baseball. Large Corporations get off with a slap of the wrist with fines and penalties for illegal behavior that got them far more than the cost of getting caught. No deterence at all. Employees may take the fall, but never the owner/CEO. Some of them go on the be President.
This is hopelessly strained. What happened with the Cardinals is not remotely like Enron or Wall Street, in that the corporation itself was not culpable.
Quick,someone hack my Twins database,we can use the cash,and draft picks.
That would require someone outside the Twins’ organization believing that their database contained information of value. Seems unlikely.
Proposed Punishment: In addition to penalties already applied, Cards are banned from trading for one year. Since their hacking was directed (in part) at gaining a trade advantage, this seems like a poetic and appropriate penalty.
I’d say the Astros got screwed before I’d say the Cards got off light. Their first pick this year will be in the fourth round. The odds of them drafting a future major leaguer are basically shot.
an interesting way to look at the relative lack of severity of the punishment:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-st-louis-cardinals-picked-the-right-league-to-cheat-in/
“Got off light” is a reasonable opinion, but I’m surprised that it’s followed by “I’m not sure how many draft picks would’ve been sufficient.” If you can’t suggest a more fitting punishment, under the current rules, maybe what MLB did isn’t so bad, after all.
Jeff noted the wildly unpredictable value of *all* draft picks below the first 10 to 15. Since the Cards never owned such a pick this year, would ANY immediate draft penalty satisfy those who thought this punishment light? MLB could have taken away, say, the Cards’ first-round picks in 2018 and ’19; but that would lose the value of immediacy.
So, what else could MLB do?
I find it hard to weigh this case without any sense of what the Cards gained from the stolen data, or the potential value of future thefts. Absent any such info, the decision seems fine to me.
When I heard they were surrendering two picks, I was hoping that it was two picks going to Houston to be used at the Astros’ discretion, any time in any draft for, say, a five year period. That would have left a mark.
For all those who feel it’s unfair to the Astros’ competitors that the Astros were “rewarded for having loose security”: it’s not a reward, it’s compensation. If you leave your front door open, and someone comes in and steals your living room furniture and later gets caught, you’re entitled to get your furniture back. In this case, since what was stolen from the Astros cannot be restored, they are compensated in other currencies (money and draft picks). One can argue about whether the amount of compensation was appropriate for what they lost, but I have little doubt that the intent was to restore the Astros’ level of competitive advantage to about what it would have been had the hacking not taken place (admittedly a very difficult thing to determine).
The problem I have with this resolution is that the Court of Major League Baseball appears to have awarded compensatory damages but no punitive damages (the latter of which should not have gone to the Astros). I feel both are appropriate in this case. While I am skeptical of the idea that nobody else in the Cardinals’ organization had any knowledge of what Correa was doing – if they did have such knowledge, either before or after the fact, they would have likely been smart enough not to leave a record of it – it wouldn’t get them off the hook even if true. Corporations are responsible for any actions taken by their employees on their behalf which benefited them, regardless of whether they knew of or approved such actions.
An article on FiveThirtyEight this morning suggests that the draft picks the Cards surrendered are worth an expected value of 4.9 WAR – or, the combined ZiPS projections for Carlos Martinez and Brett Cecil for 2017. I do wonder if these same people claiming that the Cards’ punishment was too light would say the same thing if the punishment was losing Martinez and Cecil for a year. That seems like a fair price to pay, particularly when you consider that both the FBI and MLB determined that the organization itself was not complicit in or aware of Correa’s hacks.
I’m wondering if part of this was that they decided that anything taken from the Cards would be given to the Astros, and then didn’t want to “reward” the Astros too much. IOW, if they also were giving Houston July 2 money, etc. then the rest of the AL west starts getting annoyed.
IMO, the penalty for St. Louis and the compensation for Houston should have been two different issues.