OT: MLB St. Louis Cardinals Hack Gate

[Koma]

This isn't a garden-variety cheating or gamesmanship scandal.

These allegations, if proven, constitute a crime.

We're not talking about lost draft picks or league fines. Someone could go to jail over this.

What I'm hearing now is that a Cardinals executive migrated over to the Astros, and some cuties on the Cards' staff tried out some of his old passwords on the Astros' private computer net.

That's not a fraternity prank. That's a crime.

Exactly. And people pointing out that the Astros exec didn't change his password from his time with the Cardinals have to realize that doesn't matter. When he was with the Cardinals, no one else was supposed to know his passwords. After he leaves for another job, no one with St. Louis can say "I think I figured out his old password, let me see if he kept the same one at his new job." That's not excusable as any type of gamesmanship or a gray area in the rules. The Cardinals organization should pay a high price for this.

 

[Sticky Caulk]

The Astros have become a very good team at evaluating talent lately. The Cardinals may have had access to all those evaluations. If this investigation finds the front office has looked through those evaluations, this blows any 'cheating' scandal before it out of the water.

A lot of the Astros communications were leaked last year. Would a low level intern be more likely to have a journalist ear or an executive? I'm really interested in finding out.

 

[The Gr8est]

Exactly. And people pointing out that the Astros exec didn't change his password from his time with the Cardinals have to realize that doesn't matter. When he was with the Cardinals, no one else was supposed to know his passwords. After he leaves for another job, no one with St. Louis can say "I think I figured out his old password, let me see if he kept the same one at his new job." That's not excusable as any type of gamesmanship or a gray area in the rules. The Cardinals organization should pay a high price for this.

Maybe the Cardinals should change their uniform design to look reminiscent of the Rats uniforms.

They would get off with a slap on the wrist, maybe even the Astros would end up being the team punished.

 

[Sticky Caulk]

Maybe the Cardinals should change their uniform design to look reminiscent of the Rats uniforms.

They would get off with a slap on the wrist, maybe even the Astros would end up being the team punished.

The Cards are the favorite child of the media. Bob Costas is doing damage control for them already. If this were the Red Sox, people would call for the 2013 Championship to be vacated and all 2016 draft picks vacated as well.

Hopefully Manfred shows he has balls and does hit the Cards pretty hard for this. If our team did anything like this, I would not complain about heavy punishment. We know too well that you can't just blame it on low level employees either.

 

[ViperGTS]

The Cards are the favorite child of the media. Bob Costas is doing damage control for them already. If this were the Red Sox, people would call for the 2013 Championship to be vacated and all 2016 draft picks vacated as well.

Hopefully Manfred shows he has balls and does hit the Cards pretty hard for this. If our team did anything like this, I would not complain about heavy punishment. We know too well that you can't just blame it on low level employees either.

Yeah I saw Costas saying it was no big deal and nothing will come of it. Okay Bob, wonder what you'd be saying the same if someone hacked into your accounts. Doubt it would be the same tune.

 

[Kontradiction]

So is this story even news? I mean it's only about 10x worse on the surface than Deflategate and the only link I see about it is basically buried on ESPN.

 

[everlong]

I hope the Cardinals get some minimal fine to show just how idiotic Goodell's punishment really is.

 

[h0c2000]

Exactly. And people pointing out that the Astros exec didn't change his password from his time with the Cardinals have to realize that doesn't matter. When he was with the Cardinals, no one else was supposed to know his passwords. After he leaves for another job, no one with St. Louis can say "I think I figured out his old password, let me see if he kept the same one at his new job." That's not excusable as any type of gamesmanship or a gray area in the rules. The Cardinals organization should pay a high price for this.

The Cardinals have legal access to any and all information that he produced while a Cardinals employee for the Cardinals. They can access his internal email, company phone and phone records, and any files he had on his company PCs/tablets.

Anything he does on his own time or for another organization is off limits. It doesn't matter if someone figured out his passwords or if he left them on a sticky note and left it on his monitor.

If the Cardinals are worried about theft of IP, there are civil and criminal ways to resolve those worries. There may even be internal MLB processes to resolve these outside of courts. Accessing the Astros or Luhnow's personal equipment without consent will be very troublesome.

 

[Sticky Caulk]

The Cardinals have legal access to any and all information that he produced while a Cardinals employee for the Cardinals. They can access his internal email, company phone and phone records, and any files he had on his company PCs/tablets.

Anything he does on his own time or for another organization is off limits. It doesn't matter if someone figured out his passwords or if he left them on a sticky note and left it on his monitor.

If the Cardinals are worried about theft of IP, there are civil and criminal ways to resolve those worries. There may even be internal MLB processes to resolve these outside of courts. Accessing the Astros or Luhnow's personal equipment without consent will be very troublesome.

This whole worry over Luhnow taking stuff with him from the Cardinals comes across as their manufactured excuse. They are obviously going to make one to try and downplay why they were actually on the Astro's network.

This seems like another point against the Cardinals front office not knowing about this. Why do they already have an excuse for why this happened? Would an intern go onto the Astro's network to make sure they didn't have any of the Cardinals front office stuff? How would they know what was and wasn't Cardinal property? A department head would be one to worry about that. Scouting or an executive.

 

[h0c2000]

This whole worry over Luhnow taking stuff with him from the Cardinals comes across as their manufactured excuse. They are obviously going to make one to try and downplay why they were actually on the Astro's network.

This seems like another point against the Cardinals front office not knowing about this. Why do they already have an excuse for why this happened? Would an intern go onto the Astro's network to make sure they didn't have any of the Cardinals front office stuff? How would they know what was and wasn't Cardinal property? A department head would be one to worry about that. Scouting or an executive.

Yes, it's almost like: "We didn't do it, but if we did, it's because he stole from us."

Of course, it could all be media conjecture and not actually sourced from the Cardinals. I've seen that happen recently.

 

[Sticky Caulk]

Yes, it's almost like: "We didn't do it, but if we did, it's because he stole from us."

Of course, it could all be media conjecture and not actually sourced from the Cardinals. I've seen that happen recently.

Yeah, it's hard to take reports at face value. The FBI getting involved is nuts though. I know I would feel absolute dread if the FBI was investigating the Red Sox or the Patriots.

 

[XLIX]

Yeah, it's hard to take reports at face value. The FBI getting involved is nuts though. I know I would feel absolute dread if the FBI was investigating the Red Sox or the Patriots.

I'd feel better about the FBI investigating the Patriots than the NFL investigating the Patriots. At least with the FBI, you get a fair shake.

 

[Sticky Caulk]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/spo...Cardinal-sin-6331687.php?t=d4fee30843b05374ef

The breach did in fact include player evaluations and everything in-between. Multiple times. Not just a quick glance, one time to see if their former GM took something he shouldn't have. The FBI is investigating 4-5 people in the Cards organization. That's well beyond any of the Patriot's BS they keep bringing up as a comparative.

This is really beyond anything we've seen. This is worse than having someone's playbook for one game. This is like having an organizations playbook for a couple years. The entire rebuilding process the Astro's have been going through (successfully, so far) has been tampered with. I'm not sure how you fix that.

 

[ViperGTS]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/spo...Cardinal-sin-6331687.php?t=d4fee30843b05374ef

The breach did in fact include player evaluations and everything in-between. Multiple times. Not just a quick glance, one time to see if their former GM took something he shouldn't have. The FBI is investigating 4-5 people in the Cards organization. That's well beyond any of the Patriot's BS they keep bringing up as a comparative.

This is really beyond anything we've seen. This is worse than having someone's playbook for one game. This is like having an organizations playbook for a couple years. The entire rebuilding process the Astro's have been going through (successfully, so far) has been tampered with. I'm not sure how you fix that.

Kinda poo poos the "revenge" angle that's been thrown out there as well at the end. They wouldn't waste the man power if it wasn't something pretty serious.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Does nobody in the Cards organization know how to use a VPN? I still can't get past the fact that they accessed this stuff from their homes with no attempt to disguise their location. Might as well clean out the front office for that alone, how stupid are these people? On both sides, this has to be one of the dumbest, most incompetent cases of corporate espionage ever investigated.

 

[BradyFTW!]

So is this story even news? I mean it's only about 10x worse on the surface than Deflategate and the only link I see about it is basically buried on ESPN.

This story breaking the day after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup and the same day that the Warriors won the NBA title really helps. It is kinda funny how Deflategate got about 1000x more attention in that first day, but I've stopped expecting any kind of consistency in this stuff. People only care if it involves the Patriots.

The media apologism here has really kicked into high gear, though. I guess that's what the Cardinals banked all that media good will for. Crasnick's "sign stealing enters the information age" story is especially cute. Last time I checked, the FBI doesn't investigate sign stealing.

 

[ViperGTS]

This story breaking the day after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup and the same day that the Warriors won the NBA title really helps. It is kinda funny how Deflategate got about 1000x more attention in that first day, but I've stopped expecting any kind of consistency in this stuff. People only care if it involves the Patriots.

The media apologism here has really kicked into high gear, though. I guess that's what the Cardinals banked all that media good will for. Crasnick's "sign stealing enters the information age" story is especially cute. Last time I checked, the FBI doesn't investigate sign stealing.

Bingo. Kinda funny how it works. NFL dumps the story in dead time, this gets dumped during the Finals for 2 leagues. I have been seeing some stuff although in networks now. I think it's picking up steam. Also, no BS has been leaked either. So, let's see how far down the rabbit hole this does go.

 

[SVN]

Even verducci thinks people need to "hold off" ..only if its the pats they need to be punished first.

http://www.danpatrick.com/2015/06/17/tom-verducci-on-how-much-trouble-cardinals-truly-in/

 

[ViperGTS]

Even verducci thinks people need to "hold off" ..only if its the pats they need to be punished first.

http://www.danpatrick.com/2015/06/17/tom-verducci-on-how-much-trouble-cardinals-truly-in/

It's the hypocrisy of the NFL as well. Everyone, and I mean everyone who poo poos the "they are only targeting the Pats because of their success" argument needs a perma ban from any forum. It's exactly what it is. For 15 plus years a whole division has had relatively no chance except for a year or two and those were flukes. That's not good for business.

Everything in sports is contrived. The instant you put a rule in to help or hurt a team or player, you have invalidated that sport. If you get more calls at home than on the road, you have invalidated the sport. Hence, the difference in outrage. Baseball isn't the NFL, yet, but they are trying to get there.

 

[ViperGTS]

Any chance BB can sue (not that he would ) for defamation? I'm seeing a lot of "BB would do that", "Right out of BB's playbook"

http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/...-takes-shot-bill-belichick-st-louis-cardinals