One reason that “Up and In” was a great baseball podcast is that they had a foreign affairs correspondent. It was an unofficial thing, of course, but Lincoln Mitchell served as the show’s expert voice on things like the debt crisis, the protests (and progress?) in the Middle East, and politics in general. Mitchell is a professor and political consultant by trade, and a published author, and Kevin Goldstein, naturally, fell in love with the guy.
This doesn’t come directly from Mitchell; it’s an anecdote about an anecdote. Sue me. On a particular episode (I can’t remember which; I recommend you listen to all 102 of them just to make sure you find it), Goldstein was recounting an off-air conversation he had with Mitchell, in which Mitchell mentioned a frequent point of disagreement between himself and most of the people on whom he relied for any internal information about governmental decisions or developments. It boiled down to this: Tons of information about the workings of Congress, governmental agencies, international bodies, everything, is classified and closely guarded. Many pundits, especially those with an agenda to push, make it a point to leverage the information asymmetry between themselves and the public whenever they’re discussing an unpopular or hotly contested development.
The thing is, according to Mitchell, most of the information on which these people place an extraordinary premium is intuitive, widely known, or unbelievably insignificant. Secret information that truly determines the advisability of one course of action or another is extremely rare, at least in the worlds of politics, international diplomacy, and macroeconomics. People on the inside worry way too much about small or even imaginary informational advantages.
Kevin didn’t believe that to be the case when it came to baseball. He placed significant value on what we, the outsiders and the common fans, don’t see and don’t know. (I’m putting these things in the past tense, so as not to attempt to characterize his current opinions. Maybe they’ve changed!) To quote Joe Sheehan (who was writing at this web address years before Kevin, and nearly two decades before me), “there aren’t secret baseball games going on.” I’m of the belief that, while there are certainly trade secrets worth keeping and a wealth of knowledge about specific situations that teams have and I don’t, few of these pieces of information really change the way the game works. Teams didn’t know that some catchers were saving 40 runs per season with their pitch-framing materially sooner than the public did, and the majority of teams found out thanks to former BP author Mike Fast. Bill James knew that on-base percentage was the most important offensive statistic long before Billy Beane did, and it would be five or 10 years before Beane told Michael Lewis that. One of Kevin’s favorite questions to play with was just how great the information gap between insiders and outsiders is. My answer to that question is: awfully small. Specifically, it’s that teams and their employees have reams of information about every player that we’ll never know, but most of that information just doesn’t change the equation very much.
***
This is an important conversation to have right now, since Goldstein and Fast both work for the Houston Astros, and we now know (or think we know; it looks an awful lot like we know) that the Astros were victimized, raided for their proprietary and confidential information, by the Cardinals. There are several important questions the league needs to answer in its effort to find the right way to handle this situation. The first one is the efficacy of the alleged hack, and for my money, there’s not a ton there.
The other questions are, if anything, harder to answer. For instance: We don’t know whether this was the work of rogue interns or high-up Cardinals executives. In fact, the better evidence seems to suggest it was the former. If that’s so, is this a big deal?
If the only intention was to embarrass the Astros, and not to gain a competitive advantage, is that a mitigating factor?
How high up must the conspiracy rise, within the St. Louis organization, for the hammer to come whistling down?
In answer to those questions, I offer Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Like many historical figures, Landis is sometimes too celebrated, and sometimes too vilified. He was the first Commissioner of Major League Baseball, and that was a hell of a hard bill to fill. The game was fraught with poor labor relations, strife between teams and leagues, and (most dauntingly) the serious threat that gambling would overrun the game and rob it of any competitive integrity. That threat reached a fever pitch almost the moment Landis took over the league, when the Black Sox scandal came to light.
As most historical leaders have done in times of crisis, Landis chose decisive action over nuance, and used the public’s somewhat ill-informed sentiments as justification for those actions. He consolidated power by showing his strength, and built the confidence of his constituency by holding up a new hero for a new era, one free from the ugliness that plagued the teens. Thus, it was out with Joe Jackson, in with Babe Ruth, and onward toward the glorious future of the game, albeit at the expense of an opportunity to learn from its past. It wasn’t really a good resolution; it certainly wasn’t a just one. Given the spot he was in, though, I don’t fault Landis. He did what he thought was necessary.
There’s certainly no need for anyone in the Cardinals organization to be banned for life over this. Any and all consequences should be focused on the team, not the individuals involved, because these organizations don’t run on individual brain power. They run on ways of doing things, on protocols and best practices, and it doesn’t matter whether the Cardinals intentionally adopted illegal, subversive practices, or fostered them through neglect of oversight. In either case, the outcome is the same, and the outcome does threaten the competitive integrity of the game, even if that’s more true in terms of perception than in terms of reality.
No, no one needs to be singled out (by MLB; I’m not here to debate or speculate as to whether someone goes to jail behind this), but the response from Rob Manfred’s office needs to be serious. Baseball isn’t going to be hurt by this scandal; it might actually allow the league to lead SportsCenter even after training camp opens for the Eagles and Bills. The next scandal of the same kind will really shred it, though. That’s what the stewards of institutions like this one are always worried about: the next scandal. And they’re not wrong. A soft response to this encourages other teams to try whatever similar thing they’ve been wondering whether to try. It also makes the league look just terrible if anything in the same area code as this happens again.
It was ugly and unseemly when baseball railroaded the MLBPA and manipulated the federal government in its efforts to make examples of guys like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Those were witch hunts, persecutions with personal consequences, and they reeked of hypocrisy. None of the same elements are present here. When team-on-team violations like this happen, the Commissioner has a lot of leeway. Manfred should use his to set a strong precedent, or the future of baseball will be peppered with teams trying similar stunts.
It took forever, partly because the union had to protect its members, and partly because some owners needed to get done profiting from PEDs before they got on board, but the league has arrived at the right solution to that problem: make the punishment so severe that taking the risk is an acceptable tradeoff. In other words, since a first-time positive test for PEDs now leads to an 80-game suspension, it’s not a league-wide scandal if a guy uses. He’s risking a lot to do it. He’s risking a ton. If that’s what he wants to do, let him. If he gets caught, he pays for it badly enough that no one can get mad at anyone but the user.
Manfred just has to measure out a response that reads neither as a slap on the wrist nor as a blow below the belt. Taking away a star player would be too much. Taking away a single international signing bonus slot would be too little. There’s a happy medium. The only really important things are that the Cardinals not feel like they were tarred and feathered at the end, and that fans believe a clear message was sent to cheaters.
I’ll make a recommendation, since I’m here. I think the team should be ineligible from the competitive-balance lottery for three years; lose their first draft pick in 2016; be disallowed from signing an international free agent for more than $300,000 in the next two signing periods; and pay a $1 million fine. That’s not draconian, but it materially punishes them, and blocks their avenues for working around the punishment. (For instance, without the provision about the international signings, the team could simply divert the resources they might have poured into the draft toward a bevy of high-end teenagers.)
To me, that should be the punishment, and it matters very little who did it, or why, or what degree of advantage one feels they gained from it. This should mostly be about what was actually done, and it seems clear that what was done was illegal and damaging to baseball. The rest of the questions, while interesting and ripe for debate, are only tangentially related to that central one.
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But aside from the public perception issue, I find what the Cardinals did to be distasteful. At best it was a petty and childish act of revenge against a former colleague and at worst it was an attempt to gain an unfair competetive advantage. I hope that the Cardinals take the high road on this and clean house of anyone that was responsible for what happened here instead of covering up and making lame excuses.
I'm not a big fan of Matt's suggested penalties because they will offer a competetive disadvantage to the Cardinals and as a fan that sucks, but I don't disagree that they are probably appropriate. I hope the team steps up and takes whatever punishment MLB determines and doesn't try any appeals or anything.
Finally, on a broader scope, I am weary of all of these sports scandals that happen outside the lines. The Patriots issues in football, steroids, now hacking - I enjoy following sports because what happens on the field provides relief from the noise of the real world. My enjoyment of sports is diminished when the spectre of all these scandals constantly hangs over the play on the field. I might as well think about my job, or politics, or the economy if it's going to be like that.
If it were a "rogue employee" I understand the need to punish enough to deter future infractions, but I think the proposed punishment goes too far. Imagine the plan was created high up, by someone one level below the GM. I could see the punishment there being a suspension/ban of that employee, a $1-2 million dollar team fine (has there been a higher one in MLB/NFL?), a loss of two first round draft picks, a ban from competitive lottery draft picks for 3-4 years, and a one year ban from signing anyone international amateur over 300k and an absolute ban on spending over their bonus pool for 2 years, lest they lose future first round picks.
Besides, going after draft or international pools instead of cash would be preferable to the player's union.
Implying that Luhnow may have begged for retribution based upon nothing more than ones own creative imagination would be a textbook case of blaming the victim.
Please link to evidence which raises the question so that we don't have to think that is what you did here. Thank you.
a. fits the crime
b. satisfies the masses
c. serves as an effective deterrent
The problem with your proposed solution is that punishment directed exclusively toward an entire organization does not hold any single individual directly accountable. When you blame everyone, you blame no one. Regardless of what “protocols and best practices†the Cardinals employ (or don’t) to discourage this type of behavior, the crime was committed by individual people who knew that it was wrong and who should have known that it was illegal. I don’t believe that these people should be protected from or spared from punishment by MLB.
You imply that this type of team-on-team violation is fundamentally different than the case of players taking steroids. While this is undeniable, you could also argue that there are some parallels. Teams fielding multiple players on steroids could have a competitive advantage over teams that don’t have such players. Perhaps the “steroid advantage†could rival that of the “data advantage†on the team level. It is highly likely that tangible benefits are realized by a team when its players enjoy a “steroid advantage, and such activity ultimately has team-on-team implications. Therefore, if you argue that the Cardinals should be held accountable in the hacking case, shouldn’t you also argue that teams should be punished for failing to employ “protocols and best practices†which discourage steroid use? And if we punished teams for steroid use, instead of players, would this be as effective a deterrent? I think we can agree that it probably wouldn’t be.
I would propose that MLB handle this situation very similarly to how it handled the steroid scandal…suspend all those who were directly involved for a length of time which is proportional to their involvement. The New Orleans Saints bounty program suspensions provide a nice example of how this could work. Saints GM was suspended for ½ season, Saints HC Sean Peyton was suspended for 1 year, and Saints DC Greg Williams was suspended indefinitely (and later reinstated after about 18 months). In the case of the Cardinals, one might consider punishments of ½ season to 2 seasons, depending on whether the violator was directly involved in the planning of the hack or became aware of it later and failed to take proper action.
Such as punishment would directly penalize those responsible for the violations. It would not penalize the team and fans by placing the Cardinals at a competitive disadvantage for years to come (beyond temporarily losing the services of valued employees). This seems appropriate, as regardless of the motivation of the hackers, I think we can all agree that players and loyal fans do not deserve to be punished. Further, I think this would be largely accepted by the public, just as the public has accepted player suspension for steroid use. Finally, this would be and extremely effective deterrent against future hackers. Like the players, if the careers of organizational personnel in jeopardy and the risk becomes prohibitive.
I just got off the horn with Rog and this was what he had to offer, Carlos Correa will be suspended for two years. He was in the minor league system and ranked at the top of the prospect lists, so that makes perfect sense. Mark Appel shall be put on double-super-secret probation as well for his involvement in the process.
The author seems reluctant to assign any consequences to the actual perps in this case (since organizations don't run on individual brain power). Perhaps a weak spot for people in the industry...which is understandable. But I don't place ALL of the blame upon the Cardinal organization for failing to inform its employees that corporate espionage is wrong. Sadly, personal responsibility is too easily eluded these days.
You are better off punishing the sins of individuals at the individual level and the sins of organizations at the organizational level. Punishments the effect the long term competitiveness of the team, such as lost draft picks--should be reserved for organizational problems--not the actions of a few rogue employees.
To look at it in other terms, when we discover that pitchers on a team are cheating by illegally using pine tar, the pitchers are punished. When we discover that players on a team are cheating by taking forbidden performance enhancing drugs, the players are punished. No one says that the Brewers should lose a draft pick for the actions of Ryan Braun.
In baseball, we punish individuals, not teams. I disagree that the team, not individuals, should be punished.
Maybe teams should be punished for lack of institutional control when their players use PEDs. Probably would clean the game up much faster, don't you agree?
Why should the Brewers (just to name one team, since you brought up Braun) have enjoyed the windfall of post-season money one year and increased ticket sales next year?
First, the minor point, I do think teams have a definite edge over the outside sabermetricians. As evidence, none other than Ben Lindbergh has said in (digital) print that he saw firsthand that they Yankees had the numbers on Jose Molina as early as 2009, 18 months before Fast published: http://grantland.com/features/brad-asumus-pitch-framing-dennis-eckersley/ . I forget where I saw the quote, but sometime in the past year or so someone asked a high-level front office type about the inside/outside knowledge gap and the insider said something to the effect that the outside saberworld was typically 2-3 years behind the franchises. At the minor league level I would think this advantage is greater since there is a lot more data that is strictly proprietary to franchise.
Second, more importantly, on the punishment side the punishment absolutely needs to be both individual and collective, for reasons of both intrinsic fairness and future incentives. Here are the future incentive problems.
In any principal/agent problem, there is always room for all manner of undocumentable communication, which allows for the principal to encourage the agent to behave unethically while simultaneously being able to maintain plausible deniability and hang your agent out to dry in the event he is caught. Because of this, both agent and principal need to suffer when wrongdoings happen
-The principal needs to be incented to police the agent, knowing that he will still suffer penalties even if he doesn't control them
- The agent needs a self-interested basis to refuse a suggestion from the principal to act unethically. It's a lot easier to say "I'm not risking jail for you" then it is to say "I don't feel comfortable doing this". Clear precedent that the agent will face punishment gives them more rather than less power to resist management pressure.
I generally agree with your punishments- loss of a 1st round pick, ineligibility for competitive balance picks, and international signing limitations, i.e. essentialyl equivalent punishments for violating the draft rules. Where I differ on the franchise punishment is the fine- I think the fine should be $1M plus the combined $ allocations of the forfeited picks / international pool. Between a late 1st rounder, 2 CB picks, and the internaitonal pool, the total fine would probbely get into the $8-10m range. That a) would be a real stinger but not a seriously damaging one. It would effectively be analogous to a busted draft. b) There is an explainable basis for the size of the fine. Since this is unprecendented, by definition whatever Manfred does will set a precedent. It's important that the precedent not be Goodell-style "I'll fine you whatever I damn well please" arbitrariness, and also that it not be seen that way. Tying the $ to something definable like the bonus slot allocations sets a nice limiting principle
As for the individual punishment, ultimately anyone who did or authorized the hacking should be banned from MLB employment for life. However, MLB should say at first something to the effect of "this is first and foremost a criminal matter" and defer to the DOJ. Anyone who charged should be suspended pending trial, and anyone convicted should be banned for life from MLB employment, as should anyone who admits to involvement as part of a plea, even if no criminal punishment results . MLB should make later judgement on anyone not charged based on evidence presented publicly. Only if the DOJ completely drops the ball on this should MLB do its own quasi-judicial NFL style inquisition.
I want to say this was none other than Kevin Goldstein, in one of his appearances on Effectively Wild (either episode 100 or 221) - but I am not 100% sure.
I agree with you on this point, for another reason. I think there is a fine distinction that Matthew misses. A trade secret has economic value if it conveys an economic advantage on the owner of the trade secret. Thus, I don't think the relevant question is, does an objective outsider person believe there is an economic advantage in an MLB's team proprietary data. Rather, it is has the MLB team itself realized an economic advantage from their proprietary data? We don't know that for sure, but the teams certainly do.
We can reasonably guess, however, that there are realized economic advantages based on the extremely restrictive confidentiality agreements that front office members sign. I am sure that the agreements extend the confidentiality obligations of the front office member well past the end of their employment. My experience is that such restrictive agreements are used only when warranted.
The Astros scuttled a guys career last year when they screwed him in the draft and I think they got off with 100k fine.
The patriots blatantly try to cheat every year and their penalties have been barely noticeable
Larussa and the As built an empire on steroid abuse with no fines
The best we can tell from reports is that some idiot decided to publish some non proprietary, but embarrassing emails on deadspin. Maybe there is more, but even luhnow says the data they may have seen is useless
I suspect the punishment will be a fine and an agreement to put better code of conduct policies in place unless the breach was authorized.