Cardinals fire scouting director amidst hacking scandal, per report

The St. Louis Cardinals have made what appears to be the first of many moves resulting from an ongoing investigation into an alleged hacking scandal. Their scouting director, Chris Correa, has been fired, according to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis-Post Dispatch.

It has been less than a month since it was reported by the New York Times that the Cardinals were being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) for alleged hacking into the Houston Astros' database. The Times article mentioned law enforcement officials who believed that the hacking was done by "vengeful front-office employees" who wanted to get Jeff Lunhow, the current Astros' general manager who was with the Cardinals until 2011.

Correa declined to comment to Goold after his firing, but a source told Goold that Correa is not the one accused of leaking the data.

Correa has admitted hacking into a Houston Astros database but said it was only to verify that the Astros had stolen proprietary data, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Correa did not leak any Astros data, and is not responsible for additional hacks that the FBI has alleged occurred or leaking any data, said the source.

With Correa not being accused of leaking the data, there is a whole lot more to this puzzle. The investigation will probably result in more firings and more information being released. Correra is the first domino to fall in this matter, and the FBI will continue to aggressively investigate how far up the Cardinal front office ladder this goes, and what involvement Cardinal general manager John Mozeliak had in all of this.