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Ex Cardinal's Scouting Director Chris Correa Sentenced To 46 Months For Hacking Astros' Computer System (go.com)
New submitter yzf750 quotes a report from ESPN: A federal judge sentenced the former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals [Christopher Correa] to nearly four years in prison Monday for hacking the Houston Astros' player personnel database and email system in an unusual case of high-tech cheating involving two Major League Baseball clubs. "The data breach was reported in June 2014 when Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow told reporters the team had been the victim of hackers who accessed servers and proceeded to publish online months of internal trade talks," reports ESPN. "Luhnow had previously worked for the Cardinals. The FBI said Correa was able to gain access using a password similar to that used by a Cardinals employee who 'had to turn over his Cardinals-owned laptop to Correa along with the laptop's password' when he was leaving for a job with the Astros in 2011. Prosecutors have said Correa in 2013 improperly downloaded a file of the Astros' scouting list of every eligible player for that year's draft. They say he also improperly viewed notes of trade discussions as well as a page that listed information such as potential bonus details, statistics and notes on recent performances and injuries by team prospects. Authorities say that after the Astros took security precautions involving [a database called Ground Control] following a Houston Chronicle story about the database, Correa was able to still get into it. Authorities say he hacked the email system and was able to view 118 pages of confidential information, including notes of trade discussions, player evaluations and a 2014 team draft board that had not yet been completed. Federal prosecutors say the hacking cost the Astros about $1.7 million, taking into account how Correa used the Astros' data to draft players. Christopher Correa had pleaded guilty in January to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer from 2013 to at least 2014, the same year he was promoted to director of baseball development in St. Louis. He was fired last summer and now faces 46 months behind bars and a court order to pay $279,038 in restitution. He had faced up to five years in prison on each count."
It's debatable how much of an advantage the Cardinals actually gained. As I understand it, the hacking was done to look for information that Luhnow would have taken from the Cardinals. Because the Cardinals were among MLB's best teams while the Astros were awful, the Astros would have drafted right after the Cardinals, at the start of the next round. It's possible that the Cardinals could have chosen players the Astros wanted to select, as revenge against Luhnow. However, I haven't seen any clear evidence presented that this actually occurred. Furthermore, with the Astros moving to the American League, there was far less of a direct advantage to gain from harming the Astros versus a team in your own division or league. Also, as I detailed in another post, the way Luhnow raided the Cardinals organization wasn't particularly ethical, either.
I'll answer this for you.
The St. Louis Cardinals are a Major League Baseball team. When high school and college players become professionals, they are drafted. The draft has many rounds and, generally speaking, each team picks once per round. Teams that didn't play well last season get to pick ahead of teams that played well. The idea there is competitive balance, letting bad teams pick first, when better players haven't been picked yet.
The players being drafted are young, typically 18-22 years old. They haven't physically matured yet, nor have they played against the highest levels of competition. Teams want to pick the players who are most likely to develop into major league players a few years later. Scouting involves gathering information and data about players, then projecting how they'll develop and be able to compete against better competition.
There are many thousands of high school and college players each year who are eligible to be drafted by a major league team. One person can't possibly gather and analyze data about all of those players or even a fraction of them. That's why teams have entire scouting departments to find the best young players and collect information. Teams have also turned to using statistics and analytics to measure the skills and ability of players, instead of subjective observations. Scouting departments have people who analyze the massive amount of data that's collected to predict how good young players will be a few years into the future. A lot of this involves developing software tools and analyzing statistical data. The scouting director is responsible for overseeing the people who do this type of work.