Cardinals fire director of scouting with a connection to Ground Control hack

Another bombshell dropped in the Ground Control story, as a Cardinals official was fired today for involvement with the hack. The Cardinals have dismissed their director of scouting, Chris Correa -- Correa admitted to having unauthorized access to the Astros' baseball operation database.

BREAKING NEWS: #Cardinals have fired scouting director, PD confirms. Investigation in alleged hacking continues #stl... http://t.co/5UBmZqIUqB

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) July 2, 2015

Correa was originally hired by Jeff Luhnow and the Cardinals in 2009, and was named the Cardinals’ manager of baseball development in 2012.

Correa's lawyer Nicholas Williams wrote to the Post-Dispatch:

"Mr. Correa denies any illegal conduct. The relevant inquiry should be what information did former St. Louis Cardinals employees steal from the St. Louis Cardinals organization prior to joining the Houston Astros, and who in the Houston Astros organization authorized, consented to, or benefitted from that roguish behavior."

The are at least three years of confirmed access to Ground Control on the Cardinals part. Correa claims he was only checking to see if the Astros had taken data models from the Cardinals. A charge Jeff Luhnow deigned to Sport Illustrated.

"I didn’t take anything, any proprietary information. Nor have we ever received any inquiries from anybody that even suggested that we had."