St. Louis Cardinals’ former scouting director pleads guilty

By Steven McNeil | Jan 10, 2016

Oct 4, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Detailed view of St. Louis Cardinals hat and glove in the dugout against the Atlanta Braves in the ninth inning at Turner Field. The Braves defeated the Cardinals 2-0. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports /

The MLB hacking scandal St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros is starting to get more and more clear.

Friday morning it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that former St. Louis Cardinals’ scouting director was going to plead guilty to five of the 12 charges filed against him in the MLB hacking scandal between the Cardinals and Houston Astros.

Initially details were scarce about the charges Correa faced and what could happen as a result, but after Correa appeared in court Friday afternoon, the details came out.

According to St. Louis Cardinals’ beat writer Derrick Goold, Correa was charged with “five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. Goold mentions that Correa accessed three different Houston Astros’ employees internal accounts to view classified information on scouting, trade negotiations, and information on the Cardinals’ players.

Correa’s initial defense was that he was doing this to see if the employees that followed Jeff Luhnow from the Cardinals to the Astros had taken information from the Cardinals upon their departure to Houston.

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Goold interviewed U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson about the matter and Magidson regarding Correa’s claims said, “It doesn’t mean anything at this point. It goes to his motive.”

So, it seems as if Correa’s defense is quite literally meaningless, as we all know that one crime doesn’t allow for another. Correa according to Goold, mentioned that he gained access to the Astros Ground Control system at various times from March 2013-June 2014. That is a long period of time stretching across two different seasons, and if true it is not a good look for him to have gone back to the well that long

Goold also mentions that Astros’ attorney Ken Gilbe claims that Correa reported the information that he saw back to the Cardinals, which is odd considering that the organization has refuted claims of such since the beginning of the investigation. If this does in fact turn out to be the case, there could be some stiff penalties coming the Cardinals way.

Correa, who became the Cardinals’ scouting director back in 2014 when Dan Kantrovitz left for Oakland, was promptly fired back in July, when as a result of internal investigations he admitted to the hack.

Correa, will be sentenced on April 11, and I would think that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred would likely wait till all the dust is settled on the Federal case before any movement is done. However, he has stated that he wants to wait for the investigation to finish, and with Correa now being indicted, the investigation is over.

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If MLB decides to act out and punish the Cardinals, it will be a decided blow to organization who not only leans itself on the “Cardinal Way”, but also is an organization committed to building through the draft and from within, as is evident from this offseason.