The Astros receive two draft picks and $2 million from the Cardinals to compensate Houston for the computer hacking by a Cardinals employee:
Houston will receive the Cardinals’ top two Draft selections — Nos. 56 and 75 — in the 2017 Draft, which is the most severe penalty of its kind imposed on an organization. The Commissioner’s decision to have the Cardinals pay reparations to the Astros was because he determined that Houston suffered material harm as a result of Correa’s actions.
The Cardinals also are required to pay $2 million to the Astros within the next 30 days. The amount is substantially higher than the damage calculation relied on by the federal government in its case against Correa, who is serving a 46-month prison sentence for unlawfully accessing another company’s information. As part of Manfred’s ruling, Correa was placed on the permanently ineligible list.
Very good. The Cardinals are lucky in a way they are not losing a high draft pick, but for a team that is very good at recognizing and developing talent, they are going to have a bit of a hole in their system for one year. It’s a bonanza for Houston, which will have at least four picks in the top 100.
This sends a very clear signal to clubs that hacking won’t be tolerated.
I hope the two players chosen with the two forfeited picks make the majors together so we can call them the Hack Brothers.
Wow, 46 months for the guy. The guy we convicted of two counts of domestic violence only got effectively 3 years. (prior DV convictions upped these to felonies.) And it was only that much because the guy was a known pimp.
Seems pretty light to me. But then Its all over the place, not just baseball. Large Corporations get off with a slap of the wrist with fines and penalties for illegal behavior that got them far more than the cost of getting caught. No deterence at all. Employees may take the fall, but never the owner/CEO. In the real world that individuals live in ignorance is no excuse but then corporate citizens have more rights.
We saw another example with the Padres getting a slap on the wrist for with holding information. Only the employee gets punished despite his actions benefitting the organization.
With players, no claim of being unaware of where a illegal substance came from is entertained or is there any attempt to measure how much that substance impacted his performance. Its the hammer for them.