Cardinals to lose two top draft picks, pay $2 million to Astros for hacking

The St. Louis Cardinals will pay $2 million and forfeit their two top draft picks this year as punishment for hacking into the Houston Astros’ database.

The announcement was made Monday afternoon by Major League Baseball Commissioner Ron Manfred.

Chris Correa, the Cardinals’ former scouting director, in July was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally breaching the Astros’ proprietary personnel database and emails.

The picks the Cardinals will forfeit to the Astros are Nos. 56 and 75 overall. The 56th pick is in the second round; the 75th pick is part of Compensation Round B.

St. Louis surrendered its first-round pick in the draft with the free-agent signing of center fielder Dexter Fowler.

“We respect the commissioner’s decision and appreciate that there is now a final resolution to this matter,” said Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. in a statement released by the team. “Commissioner Manfred’s findings are fully consistent with our own investigation’s conclusion that this activity was isolated to a single individual.”

DeWitt said two weeks ago that the Cardinals also conducted an internal investigation into the hacking and determined that Correa acted alone.

“This has been a long and challenging process for all of us, especially those within our baseball operations department,” Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak said in a statement. “We have learned a great deal along the way and we have taken additional steps to ensure that something like this doesn’t ever happen again.”　

This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Cardinals to lose two top draft picks, pay $2 million to Astros for hacking."