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The Cardinals’ hacking scandal

The Cardinals’ hacking scandal

Last updated on: June 18, 2015 at 5:30 am by Gene Veith

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The Cardinals’ hacking scandal 2015-06-17T10:12:25-04:00 Gene Veith

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The St. Louis Cardinals are being accused of hacking into the Houston Astro’s data system. Some are saying that, if true, this has the makings of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history, with the Cardinals facing huge penalties, people getting banned from baseball, and individuals going to jail.

Jeff Luhnow was an important part of the Cardinals’ brain trust, a data guru who was a master of the statistical analysis that has become dominant in baseball strategy and player evaluation. (See Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.) Recently, Luhnow became the general manager of the Houston Astros, where he has worked wonders, transforming a perennial losing team into one of the best performers of the season. Reportedly, someone in the Cardinals’ organization hacked into his old colleague’s account in Houston, using the same passwords he had used on his Cardinals’ account! (Lesson: change your passwords.)

But isn’t this just a minor prank, on a par with stealing signs? After the jump, read details about what apparently happened, as well as a column from Tom Boswell on why this (if true, I hasten to say) is a very big deal.

From The Washington Post:

Federal authorities are investigating whether officials from the St. Louis Cardinals hacked into the private computer systems of the Houston Astros, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The security breach — in which Cardinals officials are alleged to have accessed a wide array of proprietary information — alarmed executives throughout baseball, some of whom characterized the case as potentially among the sport’s worst scandals. Those officials said teams take extraordinary measures to protect information — including trade discussions, evaluations of players and scouting methods — and a rival team could gain “an extraordinary advantage” by tapping into such a database, one official said.

“It’s like the Coke formula,” said one former executive, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. “You don’t want Pepsi to have it.”

Such information, multiple current and former executives said, could be used in a wide range of ways: to know what players a franchise valued in trades; to learn different scouting methods; to raise a flag about players they hadn’t scouted and might want to get someone to see.

“There’s so much proprietary analysis, and the teams that do this sort of thing each have their own magic, secret formula for how they evaluate players, people, systems — all kinds of things,” one current executive said. “For another team to have that, for whatever their purposes, is an unbelievable advantage for the other team.”

The central figure in any machination involving the Cardinals and Astros is Jeff Luhnow, the general manager in Houston who came up as an executive in the St. Louis organization. Even as he helped build the Cardinals’ exceptionally strong scouting and player development departments, Luhnow, who holds an MBA and is a former management consultant, was a divisive figure because of his strident belief in modern statistical analysis. He became the Astros’ general manager following the 2011 season and has overseen a complete organizational overhaul that currently has Houston with one of the best records in the American League.

A law enforcement source with knowledge of the case said investigators believe someone in the Cardinals organization accessed the Astros’ network by trying passwords that Luhnow used during his tenure in St. Louis. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said it remains unclear who in the Cardinals’ organization committed the act.

The investigation represents a new level of cheating in sports, one that could result in both criminal charges and punitive measures from Major League Baseball. Obtaining information from a computer without authorization is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 federal law that carries penalties ranging from hefty fines to prison sentences of up to 20 years for violators.

[Keep reading. . .]

From Tom Boswell, Cardinals hacking probe shows knowledge trumps strength and speed in today’s sports – The Washington Post:

No team in the history of American pro sports has ever been in as much trouble — a legal, ethical and disciplinary nightmare — as the St. Louis Cardinals are now if an FBI and Department of Justice investigation ultimately proves that members of their front office hacked the computer network of the Houston Astros to steal . . . everything.

Government investigators are probing the Cardinals to see whether their employees hacked into the Astros’ main proprietary baseball brain — called Ground Control — which was developed by former St. Louis front office star, and now Houston general manager, Jeff Luhnow.

If proven true, this could in theory lead to jail sentences for the guilty as well as possible lifetime bans from baseball on “integrity of the game” grounds. Neither MLB, nor any other major American sport, has a precedent for punishments in such a case because no team has ever attempted such wholesale club-against-club spying, ostensibly in search of a mountain of team secrets.

But, depending on many variables — especially who knew and who (if anyone) authorized such theft — MLB might need to deliver the harshest penalties against any team in the game’s history. This investigation has the potential to make the NFL’s DeflateGate look like a probe into jaywalking.

[Keep reading. . .]

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