The federal investigation has not been completed, but the St. Louis Cardinals handed out some discipline of their own on Thursday as the team terminated the contract of Scouting Director Chris Correa.
“I can confirm he was on administrative leave and subsequently was terminated yesterday,” shared General Manager John Mozeliak during a pregame media session. “At this time, it’s still an on-going investigation and there’s really nothing more I add at this point.”
Correa ran the draft a few weeks ago for the team and more recently was on the field to introduce some of the newly signed picks.
High-level needs in the scouting department are now being handled by Mozeliak–who oversaw the more recent contract finalization of the team’s draft picks over the last few days. Jared Odom of the team’s baseball operations has been assigned many of the day-to-day duties in the department on an interim basis.
Mozeliak stated he did not believe any of the draft pick negotiations had been affected by Correa being placed on the leave.
How close both the federal and Cardinals internal investigations are to coming to an end remains unclear. “We’re at the pace of the federal government,” answered Mozeliak as to when he might be able to further address this personnel move.
The FBI and Justice Department are investigating a computer hacking incident into the Houston Astros baseball operations database, which the Cardinals were alerted to near the beginning of the year.
Correa was hired by the Cardinals in 2009 and worked in statistical analysis before being promoted to Director of Baseball Development following the 2013 season and then became the Scouting Director in December of last year.
