The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the Astros’ information systems were illegally accessed not only in 2014 and 2013, as previously believed, but also all the way back in 2012.
While the hacking may have been isolated in the sense that it could have been only one or a handful of employees checking things out, it was apparently not limited to a one or even two-time incursion. Someone was reportedly doing this over the course of several years.
What makes that revelation particularly strange is that, if the hacking was done for vindictive/embarrass-Jeff-Luhnow reasons (as theorized), and not to gain any kind of operations insight, why were the Astros’ documents only leaked in 2014, years after the hacking reportedly first took place? I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question, and I’m not slinging any mud here. I’m just trying to piece this together, like pretty much everyone else.
Which includes the Cardinals’ higher ups, according to owner Bill DeWitt. You can read his thoughts in the Chronicle article, in addition to his official comments, which we discussed yesterday. DeWitt sounds confused about what happened and how it happened, which I suppose is how you’d expect him to react whether he had knowledge or not – though I do still tend to believe that neither he nor GM John Mozeliak were involved, based on everything that’s come out to date.
Still, new information seems to be coming out daily on the investigation and what preceded it, so I suppose you never know.