Cardinals fire scouting director Correa amid hacking scandal

The Post-Dispatch report cites a source saying Correa admitted to hacking the database in order to see if Luhnow was using the club’s proprietary data. Correa, who has a master’s in psychology, took over as the Cardinals’ scouting director last December.

Before the Cardinals game against the Padres on Wednesday night, General Manager John Mozeliak said “I can confirm (Correa) was on administrative leave and subsequently was terminated (Wednesday). Correa claimed to have used an old password from a ex- Cardinals employee who now works for the Astros, but says he did not download data from Houston’s “Ground Control” system. At the time, Luhnow was the director of amateur scouting and farm director.

Correa’s attorney, Nicholas Williams, said in a written statement that his client denies any “illegal conduct”.

It is assumed Correa was dismissed because of his alleged link to the Astros’ hacking scandal. The St. Louis Cardinals have not commented on the reason for Correa’s firing. The team is investigating the alleged hacking, as is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“At this stage in the investigation it will be key to determine, as to where the trail goes, who may have ordered or was aware of the activity”, Hilder said.

Luhnow and director of decision sciences Sig Mejdal worked with the Cardinals before joining the Astros, for whom they launched a database called “Ground Control”. The Astros rely heavily on analytics in their evaluation of players and use an online database called Ground Control to house proprietary information.

“There was zero knowledge until the FBI launched their investigation and we became aware of it”, DeWitt said, per Patrick. Federal investigators traced at least one of multiple breaches of the Astros’ network to that house.

“What we found was that even the most highly sophisticated had a tendency sometimes to make mistakes”, Zweiback said.

His involvement with the hacking was said to have began in 2013.