Houston Astros: The Curious Case of Jeff Luhnow
By Manny Gómez
The Hacking Scandal
After experiencing the worst season in franchise history in 2013 and given Jeff Luhnow’s data driven view of baseball, a rift started to build between Astros manager Bo Porter and Luhnow.
On September 1, 2014, Jeff Luhnow decided to fire Porter and bench coach Dave Trembley after a little over a season with the organization. Luhnow made no bones about his decision to fire Porter.
In a statement, Luhnow says:
"“What we will seek going forward is a consistent and united message throughout the entire organization. It is essential that as an organization we create an atmosphere at the Major League level where our young players can come up and continue to develop and succeed. Ultimately, I am responsible for creating that culture, and I will do everything in my power to do so — even when it means making difficult moves like the one we made today.”"
The following season, In 2015, Jeff Luhnow hired then 40 year old A.J. Hinch. Luhnow stated that Hinch is “well-rounded” and “understands my perspective.” Luhnow liked that Hinch had previous big league experience in the dug out and in the front office.
For the first time in his MLB career, Luhnow found his guy.
His past, however, was out to get him.
In June 2015, Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times reported that the St. Louis Cardinals were under investigation by the FBI for hacking the Houston Astros to steal information about players. The story went on to say that:
"“Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager, who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011.”"
In January of 2016, St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Christopher Correa plead guilty to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer from 2013 to 2014. He was later sentenced to 46 months in prison.
A year later, Correa sought to release the truth about the whole ordeal. In a statement released by his family on Correa’s twitter account, Correa takes full responsibility for his actions.
Then, he dropped this bomb:
"“On Dec. 21, 2011, a Houston Astros employee accessed proprietary data on a St. Louis Cardinals server… Later, I would learn – through unlawful methods – that Cardinals’ data were used extensively from 2012 through 2014. Houston Astros employees used the data to replicate and evaluate key algorithms and decisions tools related to amateur and professional player evaluation.”"
The tweet has since been deleted, but the comments were never retracted
Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
First reported on WTTS, according to a complaint filed in Palm Beach County by former MLB pitcher Neiman Nix, Jeff Luhnow along with other members of the Astros organization violated Florida’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act (FUTSA).
A data driven pitching program, Nix’s trade secrets, referred to in the complaint as “The Nix Method,” is a program that enhances a pitchers performance and combats power hitting. It also allows pitchers to throw breaking balls with higher spin rates while keeping them healthy.
Luhnow and his team utilized covert methods to obtain “The Nix Method.” They invited Nix to the Cardinals spring training complex to demonstrate the method; they hired ex employees and students of Nix’s; they even went to his facilities in Washington to see his method in action, and pretended to be interested in purchasing Nix’s motion imaging tracking machine, a tool used to help pitchers in perfect the technique.
According to the New York State Court Filing System, the case status is “deposed, motion pending.”