Cardinals hacking scandal: Organization gets off easy
Finally, we have clarity on the St. Louis Cardinals hacking scandal. Six months after Chris Correa (evidently, the lone bad wolf) plead guilty in a federal court to hacking the Houston Astros database of prospect info, among other things, MLB has handed the Cardinals organization its punishment.
The Cardinals have been fined $2 million (the max allowable under the new CBA) (a CBA that Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt was instrumental in negotiating). The club has also been stripped of their top two remaining MLB draft picks in 2017.
Frankly, I think the Cardinals got off easy here. I could go in to a diatribe on why, but I’d prefer you simply read John Nagel’s thoughts over at RedBirdDaily.com. He lays out a pretty simple argument of how the Cardinals, DeWitt and general manager John Mozeliak got off easy. He also explains, why, once again, Mozeliak is a bit of genius. Nagel also discussed the impact on bonus pool money this will have. It is worth the read.
Where I would prefer to focus are on a few other areas, listed below, in no order of preference or importance. But instead, simply presented to make you think before spouting off anger on social media about how everyone is out to get the Cardinals.
~ Are draft picks really that big of a deal in baseball? I know that the higher the pick, the more likely a player is to succeed and that a guy like Nagel will completely disagree with me here. But baseball is not like the NFL or NBA. It is not a guarantee that a first round draft pick ever lives up to the hype. It is not even a guarantee, unless you draft a college senior, that the guy you select in the first round decides to sign with your organization. While losing the picks is unfortunate, it is not something that the Cardinals can not overcome.
~ The Cardinals have overcome bad drafting in the past, as Charlie Marlow of Fox 2 points out in the Tweet of the day. I’d rather not have a pick at all than make a pick like Pete Kozma again.
~ How is the Astros actually receiving these picks fair to the rest of the league? I mean, the Astros surely were a victim here, as Correa stole their intellectual property. But now, by giving the Astros a pair of additional high round picks, Major League Baseball has now victimized the rest of the 28 teams in baseball who were disadvantaged by the Cardinals having information they did not have in the past anyway.
Let me try to explain further. The Cardinals had an upper hand on not only the Astros by stealing their information, but on the rest of the league too. Nobody else had the data and information of both the Cardinals scouting department AND the Astros.
And now, the rest of the league has to deal with the Astros having an advantage by receiving extra picks.
Just another classic example of solving one problem by creating another one.
~ For the record, a remedy that would have made more sense, would be to still strip the Cardinals of the picks. But instead of giving them to Astros, let the Cardinals keep them and make them the last two picks of the overall draft.
~ Isn’t it funny that one of the picks the Astros are inheriting (or the Cardinals are losing) is a competitive balance pick?
Astros can trade pick #56, as it was the competitive balance pick the Cardinals would have received. #STLCards— Brenden Schaeffer (@bschaeffer12) January 30, 2017
Alright, let it rip. Let me have it. I deserve it. I should be enraged that the team is being put at a disadvantage because of the obsessive actions of a rogue scouting director.
Sorry, but this is the truth. The Cardinals got off easy.
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