Baseball 2015

Pretty sure this would be a law broken. It's the same(to a certain extent) as a corporation hacking a competitor to steal some new product.

 

I disagree that every team does this. With today's scouting there really isn't any need. Given the relationships involved, it sounds like this was more vindictive in nature. Sounds like the Cards are going to try & spin this as protecting proprietary info. I imagine Houston will claim St Louis's actions were either vindictive or borne of a fear of being unable to replicate their previous success with Luhnow. As usual, I suspect the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I doubt the idea of someone being employed to do this b/c from the initial reports, it's sounds like whoever was involved left their electronic fingerprints all over the place rather clumsily. We'll see though.

 

Football is the one sport where I think it would make the most sense...access to playbooks/schemes.

Plus, it's not like "unnecessary" has prevented those with money & power from acting on paranoia, greed, etc, in the past, however recklessly. So you may be right.

 

...Unless it was a criminal act. As FulhamTX pointed out (and as I understand it), this would be the same as corporate espionage under federal law. So I'd say there's quite a bit to see here.

 

Even not being in the same division, it means something. What if after the hacking the cardinals wanted to trade with the Astros? They would have the Astros own scouting reports and what they think guys are worth, huge advantage.

Also if nothing is done to the cardinals just because they did it to a team in the other league, what's to stop the next team from doing it to a division rival. Sets a bad precedent.

 

I suppose you leave the door cracked when you go to a competitor and use the same passwords.

 

This is something that really interests me. If it was just some low-mid tier front office guys as has been reported, how were they able to obtain luhnows cardinal passwords? I would think you'd have to be pretty high up to find out this info, legally at least. Unless of course these guys got the passwords by other means, such as hacking the cardinals system to find out the passwords. Seems like a lot of work just to get back at a guy you dislike. And why wait so long to do so? 2013 is when the breach was supposed to have happened, luhnow was hired at the end of 2011. I'm not saying the cardinals front office leaders knew about or called for the hacking but things don't exactly add up.

 

I happened to be on my annual pilgrimage to Mecca when this story broke. I haven't checked on it today, but I don't think it will amount to much. The prevailing wisdom suggests that someone who was not happy with Jeff Luhnow did this. He's the former Cardinal scouting director and has been the Astro's GM since the end of 2011. I'd be very surprised if this isn't the scenario. There's no reason for the Cardinals to cyberspy on Houston. Hell, we're not even in the same league any more. It's a temporary black eye for the franchise, but I expect it do go away sooner rather than later. It's humorous to see people comparing it to the Patriots misdeeds.

 

The patriots thing was bad. This is a federal crime though. No matter who did it, it's a big problem for baseball and MLB should have a "lack of institutional control" type punishment for this. A precedent must be set. I don't care what the reason is and I don't care if it's the GM or the ball boy that did it. If a cardinals employee hacked into another teams system and baseball slaps the cardinals on the wrist, this won't be the last hacking we see. Plus this is Manfred's first test as commish, he needs to come across strong.

 

Not that I agree (in toto), but as Jim Rome used to say: "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

 

However this plays out, I have full faith and confidence that the ownership group will make it right. Even if it means selling, which I don't think will happen. Bill DeWitt understands what's at stake here, and he "gets" what the Cardinals mean to a great deal (still) of the midwest. Does everybody do it? I don't know, but I suspect that, to a certain degreee, they do. And St. Louis' success has created a "Cardinal fatigue" that puts them under greater scrutiny, much like the Patriots. I mean, does anybody care if the Cubs cheat? Meanwhile, the Post-Dispatch's excellent columnist, Bernie Miklasz, summed it up nicely for me this morning:

"If cheating for baseball reasons was the true motivation, I’d be surprised. These hackers were comically careless. This wasn’t sophisticated. The culprits made it ridiculously easy for the FBI to follow their trail. Who came up with this plot _ Fredbird?"

 

You can't compare this (baseball) to the Patriots (football). There are two totally different standards. Brady kind of, sort of got caught manipulating the ball and gets suspended for a quarter of the season. Pitchers routinely get caught red handed with foreign substances intended to manipulate the ball and they miss one start.

In other news, I went to see the Astros first hand last night at Coors. They are playing exceptionally well right now (though the Rockies have a tendency to make other teams look good). I was glad that I arrived on time since it was 2-0 after the first two batters. Springer is tearing it up lately and Correa looks like he may live up to the hype. Them team smashed four home runs and acquired 13 hits (which was nice to see). The only downside is that Altuve left the game early with tightness in his hamstring.

 

My point here has nothing to do with whether an infraction occurred or not. My point was the level of the punishment is grossly disproportionate for a similar infraction.

There are many, many issues with the procedures of that evening and with the findings of the Wells report. But that's another subject. We'll see what happens this week with Brady's appeal but, as Belichick says, I'm on to next year.