St. Louis Cardinals front office under FBI investigation for hacking

[ReynardMuldrake]

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. and Justice Department prosecutors are investigating front-office officials for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful teams in baseball over the past two decades, for hacking into the internal networks of a rival team to steal closely guarded information about player personnel.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials broke into a network of the Houston Astros that housed special databases the team had built, according to law enforcement officials. Internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports were compromised, the officials said.

The officials did not say which employees were the focus of the investigation or whether the team’s highest-ranking officials were aware of the hacking or authorized it. The investigation is being led by the F.B.I.’s Houston field office and has progressed to the point that subpoenas have been served on the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for electronic correspondence.

The Houston Astros hired Luhnow as general manager in December 2011. Before then he had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals. Credit David J. Phillip/Associated Press
The attack represents the first known case of corporate espionage in which a professional sports team has hacked the network of another team. Illegal intrusions into companies’ networks have become commonplace, but it is generally conducted by hackers operating in foreign countries, like Russia and China, who steal large tranches of data or trade secrets for military equipment and electronics.

Major League Baseball “has been aware of and has fully cooperated with the federal investigation into the illegal breach of the Astros’ baseball operations database,” a spokesman for baseball’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in a written statement.

The Cardinals officials under investigation have not been put on leave, suspended or fired. The commissioner’s office is likely to wait until the conclusion of the government’s investigation to determine whether to take disciplinary action against the officials or the team.

The case is a rare mark of ignominy for the Cardinals, one of the sport’s most revered and popular organizations. The team has the best record in baseball this season (42-21), regularly commands outsize television ratings and has reached the National League Championship Series nine times since 2000. The Cardinals, who last won the World Series in 2011, have 11 titles over all, second only to the Yankees.

Their owner, Bill DeWitt, is a highly regarded executive who last year was in charge of the search committee for a new commissioner to replace the retiring Bud Selig.

Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011.

From 1994 to 2012, the Astros and the Cardinals were division rivals, in the National League. For a part of that time, Mr. Luhnow was a Cardinals executive, primarily handling scouting and player development. One of many innovative thinkers drawn to the sport by the “Moneyball” phenomenon, he was credited with building baseball’s best minor league system, as well as drafting several players who would become linchpins of the Cardinals’ 2011 World Series-winning team.

The Astros hired Mr. Luhnow as general manager in December 2011, and he quickly began applying his unconventional approach to running a baseball team. In an exploration of the team’s radical transformation, Bloomberg Business called it “a project unlike anything baseball has seen before.”

Under Mr. Luhnow, the Astros have accomplished a striking turnaround; they are in first place in the American League West division. But in 2013, before their revival at the major league level, their internal deliberations about statistics and players were compromised, law enforcement officials said.

The intrusion did not appear to be sophisticated, the law enforcement officials said. When Mr. Luhnow was with the Cardinals, the organization built a computer network, called Redbird, to house all of their baseball operations information — including scouting reports and player personnel information. After leaving to join the Astros, and bringing some front-office personnel with him from the Cardinals, Houston created a similar program known as Ground Control.

Ground Control contained the Astros’ “collective baseball knowledge,” according to a Bloomberg Business article published last year. The program took a series of variables and “weights them according to the values determined by the team’s statisticians, physicist, doctors, scouts and coaches,” the article said.

Investigators believe Cardinals officials, concerned that Mr. Luhnow had taken their idea and proprietary baseball information to the Astros, examined a master list of passwords used by Mr. Luhnow and the other officials who had joined the Astros when they worked for the Cardinals. The Cardinals officials are believed to have used those passwords to gain access to the Astros’ network, law enforcement officials said.

Last year, some of the information was posted anonymously online, according to an article on Deadspin. Among the details that were exposed were trade discussions that the Astros had with other teams. Mr. Luhnow was asked at the time whether the breach would affect how he dealt with other teams. “Today I used a pencil and paper in all my conversations,” he said.

Believing that the Astros’ network had been compromised by a rogue hacker, Major League Baseball notified the F.B.I., and the authorities in Houston opened an investigation. Agents soon found that the Astros’ network had been entered from a computer at a home that some Cardinals officials had lived in. The agents then turned their attention to the team’s front office.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/sp...id=tw-bna&_r=0

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

It could have been, but because of the parties to this one in particular, it probably isn't.

Again, Luhnow's stuff is the same stuff the Cards have. And Luhnow never knew anyone was in his system until it was leaked. If the Cards were actually getting good intel, they'd have never leaked the information.

I mean I guess we'll find out; shit's gonna hit the fan here and we'll see what happens when it all settles. Maybe the Cards front office guy(s) were sitting on key data and grabbed Wacha a bit early in the 2012 draft knowing that the Astros might take him in the 2nd. Maybe they leaked the negotiations/information regarding Aiken/Nix and the Casey Close mess last year. But with the sordid history between Luhnow and the remnants of the Jocketty camp, the most likely scenario is that some jackass stumbled into the password and wanted Luhnow to look like a dick.

Nobody that had given this a moment of thought would have ever thought that the Astros/Luhnow would just let that go. If it had really been a source of steady data mining, the Cards front office would have never leaked that information because it was obviously going to get back on them at some point.

It also was incredibly stupid for whoever did it to leak this info. Because the Astros then knew they had a leak, and that led to them turning it over to the FBI.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by BWillie

So, how big of an advantage would this give you? I would think it would really only help in player acquisition with that team to figure out how much they value a given player. I dont see why the Cardinals would even bother based on risk reward. So stupid of them

I think you're underestimating how much the Mo people hate the Luhnow people.

I once had a Cards scout refuse to talk to me because I mentioned something SABRE-ish. Was told "You want to talk about made-up bullshit like that, you go talk to one of Luhnow's nerds."

[kcpasco]

so going down a list of old passwords is hacking?

[Mr. Laz]

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BWillie

So, how big of an advantage would this give you? I would think it would really only help in player acquisition with that team to figure out how much they value a given player. I dont see why the Cardinals would even bother based on risk reward. So stupid of them

Theoretically it could give you a pretty big advantage depending on what you found.

If you're the Cardinals and you hack the Cubs, for instance. You'll get to look into Epstein's brain and see what player development/analysis tools he has. You also get an edge on a division rival that you'll likely be competing with for players. You'll know exactly what they'd be willing to pay so you can price enforce in FA negotiations or not overbid if it's someone you want.

The benefits could be enormous if they yield a new set of eyes/minds and/or provide a way to undermine your direct competition.

In this particular instance, however, they got to Luhnow's system - a system he developed over his 8 years in STL. There was no new information there. Moreover, there's very little benefit to price enforcing as they're in separate leagues. It could be helpful when pursuing players but near as I can remember, the Cards/Astros have not been in on the same guys since Luhnow went out there because they've been in different places on the competitive cycle.

In the end, it almost certainly yielded next to no competitive advantage for STL, which is supported by the fact that they leaked the intel and thus cooked that golden goose.

I mean shit, if you're going to make the organization look TERRIBLE, at least do it in pursuit of actually benefiting your squad instead of just trying to make a former co-worker look like a tool.

[RollChiefsRoll]

St. Louis is a festering shithole. Baseball is all they have. Cut me some slack, FBI, dang.

[seclark]

Originally Posted by kcpasco

so going down a list of old passwords is hacking?

using them is.
bad deal.
sec

[SPchief]

List of key words being looked for.

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

This is one of the worst cheating scandals in modern sports history.

But also Luhnow is a total dummy for not changing his passwords. C'mon dude.

unless it was a honeypot trap. If so, Luhnow is an even greater genius knowing the acrimony between some of the front office on the way out might result in former coworkers might attempt to see him flame out.

Do I think that's what happend? No.
I do expect the Cards to find a patsy to fall on their sword in an attempt to do damage control. I hope they show them no quarter.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by kcpasco

so going down a list of old passwords is hacking?

actually yes

It's basically a form of brute force hacking.


There are hacking programs that use "dictionaries" of sorts and a automated log-in app to try every password possible.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

It also was incredibly stupid for whoever did it to leak this info. Because the Astros then knew they had a leak, and that led to them turning it over to the FBI.

Exactly - that's why I don't think this was a known organizational thing.

One or two jackasses thinking like frat boys would leak the information because they thought it was funny. But at the upper levels, someone's going to realize 'holy shit folks, Luhnow's gonna come hard for whoever did this...how 'bout we not EVER let it be known that we have it....'

Like I said, we'll find out. The FBI's not gonna just hang out there. There are gonna be high level Cardinal officials in courtrooms for a very long time answering some pretty nasty questions under oath. But with some background on the parties involved and with at least some knowledge as to how that information was eventually used/leaked, a face level reading suggests something very stupid and not ultimately very beneficial.

[Rudy tossed tigger's salad]

TEX needs to get in here.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I think you're underestimating how much the Mo people hate the Luhnow people.

I once had a Cards scout refuse to talk to me because I mentioned something SABRE-ish. Was told "You want to talk about made-up bullshit like that, you go talk to one of Luhnow's nerds."

HA!

Damn, you have a fair amount of nice information. I knew you worked in sports, but how closely/long did you work with folks within the Cards organization?

Yeah, it's incredibly important to know the parties involved here. Walt Jocketty got fired a mere 10 months after winning a World Series, culminating a 3 year stretch where they won 2 pennants and had 2 100 win seasons. He was fired for a mediocre, but not awful, 78 win season where the whole team broke down.

The problem was that the organization had become so friggen toxic that guys in the front office simply weren't speaking to each other for months at a time.

Everything about this goes back to the absolute hatred between the Luhnow and Jocketty people and the fact that Jocketty still has loyal lieutenants in that front office via John Mozeliak.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Exactly - that's why I don't think this was a known organizational thing.

One or two jackasses thinking like frat boys would leak the information because they thought it was funny. But at the upper levels, someone's going to realize 'holy shit folks, Luhnow's gonna come hard for whoever did this...how 'bout we not EVER let it be known that we have it....'

Like I said, we'll find out. The FBI's not gonna just hang out there. There are gonna be high level Cardinal officials in courtrooms for a very long time answering some pretty nasty questions under oath. But with some background on the parties involved and with at least some knowledge as to how that information was eventually used/leaked, a face level reading suggests something very stupid and not ultimately very beneficial.

Better just hope the Cardinals didn't nab a guy the Astros were extremely high on in the draft or something, with a paper trail. That would be the most egregious thing that could happen, IMO.

For example, if there is an email chain in the Cardinals files (which the FBI now has reason to go after) about a player (Say, Michael Wacha) and how the Cards should jump up their evaluation of him based on info from the Astros database, I imagine that would draw attention from the FBI and MLB...

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by wazu

I'm not a hater, but this is pure gold.

Just one for example that shows the intellectual genius on full display.


]Kathryn Waellner ‏@KatWaellner 50m
50 minutes ago

The FBI is just jealous of the Cardinals success

dur??

I wasn't aware that the FBI was deep in a pennant chase...