Astros Hack-Gate Update: Chris Correa Receives his Sentence

The Cardinals’ executive who hacked the Astros received his sentence

Chris Correa, the former executive for the St. Louis Cardinals who was under investigation for his part in the hacking scandal dubbed “Hack-Gate.” Correa finally received his verdict today and was found guilty of hacking the Astros computer system that was referred to as Ground Control. It was a system that was similar to what the Cardinals used when Jeff Luhnow was employed with them.

I wrote about this awhile back, where Luhnow turned in his computer and password to Correa after he accepted the job with the Astros. Apparently, Luhnow was not the favorite guy with the Cardinals front office with his rapid rise and sabermetric beliefs. Correa thought that Luhnow had stolen data from the Cardinals, so he got ahold of the Ground Control URL. Here are some details.

“This event happened around December 8, 2011, when the Astros hired Luhnow. Apparently, when Luhnow joined the Astros, he changed the password to, “a similar (albeit obscure) password,” according to the court documents. It was similar to the password that Correa had in his possession. Correa did not attempt to use that password without knowing where to use it until a story published by the Houston Chronicle was published with a URL visible in one of the pictures. Following the release of the story, the Astros noticed people were trying to access the ‘Ground Control’ system, so they changed the URL and changed all the passwords.” This quote comes from my earlier post below.

Related Story: The Astros finally know what the Cardinals knew about them

Luhnow did not know that Correa had access to his email, so he was able to receive the new URL address through Luhnow’s emails. That’s when Correa really started to hack Ground Control in 2013 and 2014. Correa looked at the Astros draft list, including what Astros scouts thought of each player. Some of these players were even drafted by the Cardinals the next day. You can read the rest here: The Astros finally know what the Cardinals knew about them.

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Fast forward to the future, “According to Kibbe, Correa accessed the Astros’ database 60 times on 35 days from March 2013 to June 2014.” This is from David Baron’s article on the sentencing that concluded today. Gene Kibbe, the Astros general counsel, gave the stats for how many times Correa accessed the Astros system. For his actions, Correa will get 46 months in prison, which is less than we predicted at the beginning of the trial. Correa will also have to pay $297 K in restitution, per Baron.

Now that the trial is over, according to Jeff Passan Tweets that, “Now that Chris Correa’s sentence has been levied, Major League Baseball plans to come down with punishment on the Cardinals for the hack.” It is undecided what could happen, but the Cardinals could lose a draft pick in punishment for their part in Hack Gate.

Next: Astros: A Balance of the Money and Talent

The Astros are probably glad that the sentencing is over, and they await the news of punishment for the Cardinals by the Commissioner. The harshness of the penalty will depend on how much involvement the Cardinals had in the hacking. This is the final step of the Hack Gate process; then we can just focus on winning baseball games.

***Information from David Baron’s Ex-Cardinals executive Christopher Correa gets 46-month sentence for hacking Astros***