Ex-St. Louis Cardinals Staffer Guilty of Hacking Astros Database

Former St. Louis Cardinals director of scouting Chris Correa will plead guilty to five charges related to accessing scouting data on the Houston Astros’ database, the Wall Street Journal reports. Correa pleaded guilty Friday, Jan. 8, 2016 in federal court to hacking the Houston Astros’ player personnel database.

Laymance also states that the Cardinals had access to the Astros data at different times from 2012-2014, shortly after the scandal broke, Chris Correa spoke up and said that he was the one who was responsible for hacking into the Astros system.

The Astros claim that there were multiple breaches into their database. The FBI says that no other Cardinals employees were involved in the hack. Correa got around that by accessing Victim A’s email account, without authorization, and “he found the emails that contained Ground Controls new URL and the newly reset password”.

The Astros operated a private online database, nicknamed Ground Control, that housed a variety of confidential information, including scouting reports, statistics and contract information. He was later promoted to scouting director a few years after Lunhow left to become the general manager of the Astros in 2011. The commissioner’s office intends to look into the results of the federal investigation when determining if and when penalties will be assessed against the Cardinals.

Conviction on each of the five counts carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Correa admitted that he tapped into the Astros’ player scouting database and emails from 2013 to at least 2014 to use the information to help the Cardinals draft players.

The Astros are a team that relies on sabermetrics when evaluating players, and they have been open about their Ground Control databases.

Correa, 35, appeared before a judge in Houston on Friday afternoon. Correa was taking an imposed leave of absence at the time and his lawyer told the media he “denies any illegal conduct” in the case.

Giles Kibbe, an attorney for the Astros, told the St. Louis Post Dispatch in July that neither the Houston team nor any of its employees who came from the Cardinals stole proprietary information.