[DEADSPIN] 10 months of front office trade talks apparently leaked

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The complete transcript of general manager Jeff Luhnow's sessions with reporters following the leak: <a href="http://t.co/AcWilBN8DV">http://t.co/AcWilBN8DV</a></p>&mdash; Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/statuses/483742515187572738">June 30, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Astros GM Jeff Luhnow addresses trade leaks, Deadspin
Posted on June 30, 2014 | By Evan Drellich

This is a transcript of general manager Jeff Luhnow’s sessions with reporters on Monday, following the release of conversations the Astros had with other clubs regarding trades that were meant to remain private.


“It’s a very unfortunate circumstance. When somebody illegally from the outside breaks into (a) proprietary database that we have, not all the information that was published is accurate. Some of it is not. I really can’t get into what was accurate and what wasn’t. Some of it was. But it was an illegal activity and we’re going to pursue it and try and find out who did it and prosecute them because it’s not something that should be happening. We’re doing everything we can to upgrade our security so it doesn’t happen again. We’ve been working on that since we discovered this. But it’s unfortunate that it’s out there and it’s unfortunate that other teams are affected and individual players. It’s a refelction of the age we living in. People are always trying to steal information, get information, whether it’s legally or illegally, and in this case it was illegally obtained and it’s unfortunate.”

DO YOU PROSECUTE DEADSPIN?

“I can’t answer that. I mean the FBI’s involved, we’ve got MLB security involved and we’re going to prosecute whoever the party that illegally obtained the information. That’s as far as I know right now.”

SOMEBODY FROM THE OUTSIDE?

“Yes. It was definitely an outside entity that decided to come in illegally and try and take information.”

HOW IS SEARCH GOING?

“I can’t comment on that. It’s been ongoing. It didn’t start today, we knew this — we were informed about this about a month ago. And we’ve been pursuing the individuals and it is a criminal investigation.”

WAS SECURITY SUFFICIENT?

“Obviously not, if someone got in. It’s better now, and hopefully that’s good enough, but you never know. I don’t know if anybody can say for certain that any system is 100 percent secure. We’re working on it, we’ve done a security review. We’re going to continue to do more. It’s something that’s obviously — information is important in our industry as it is in any industry and we want to do everything we can to protect the information.”

UPGRADE IN RESPONSE TO THIS?

“We have.”

UNFORTUNATE THAT IT IMPACTS OTHER TEAMS?

“It is, it’s unfortunate. Some of it like I said is not accurate and there’s information out there that affects other teams and individual players that’s not accurate. And just in general, when you have a conversation with another team, it’s a conversation between two individuals or two clubs. It’s not meant to be shared with the world, so. That’s, I feel, I feel bad about that. I’ve been on the phone with other teams expressing my apology and letting them know what I happened. That’s about all I can do at this point.”

FEEL LIKE YOU NEED DAMAGE CONTROL WITH YOUR OWN PLAYERS?

“I’ve talked to the players that are here and I think they understand what happened. The reality is that a lot of players are discussed all the time, and it’s part of the nature of our industry. It doesn’t mean that things happen all the time in regard to those players. It doesn’t mean that we don’t want or value those players, but you’re always checking to see what’s out there. If you were to move a player, what you might get back, and those conversations happen all the time. They just don’t get documented and published publicly.”

MONTH AGO, HOW?

“We found — it came to our attention that it was out there. And we found it and tried to adjust it at that time and for a while it was not there and then it came back.”

AFFECT THE WAY THAT YOU DEAL WITH OTHER TEAMS?

“Today I used a pencil and paper in all my conversations. You know, we have to think about it. It’s the double-edged sword of technology makes things easier. But if things like this are capable of happening, it’s definitely a risk that every team should probably think about now in light of this happening to us. I mean it happened to us, could it have happened to other clubs? I don’t know. But it’s, one of the things I have been talking to my counterparts about at other clubs is recommending that everybody take a look at their own security systems and make sure that they don’t’ get hacked the way we were. It definitely was an evil activity.”

HOW HAVE OTHER CLUBS REACTED?

“I really can’t comment on that. I’ve had conversations with a lot of the teams that were referenced in there and in general they’re understanding and supportive but I’m sure they’re not happy about the fact that whether they’re real or not that the conversations referencing their team and their players were referenced.”

DO YOU REACH OUT TO YOUR PLAYERS?

“Some of that, yeah. I mean there were a couple conversations that — I mean I talked to all the players, A, to let them know this was probably going to be something that was asked of them and B, to let them know what actually happened and what did transpire.”

BACKGROUND IN TECHNOLOGY MAKE YOU WORRIED ABOUT THIS?

“Yeah, always worried about it. And something that no matter how much security you put in, if people find value in the information, they’re going to try and get it, so. Yes, it’s been something that’s been on our mind and will continue to be something on our mind. Obviously it’s heightened at this point because of what happened.”

SHOULD THE ASTROS HAVE BEEN BETTER PREPARED?

“I think we were prepared. We had security in place, and when you’re talking about criminals we just never know if we have enough. I think we were prepared as we could have been.”

WHY THE ASTROS?

“Not necessarily. I think we were one of the more active teams in the trade market the last couple years, so — and I don’t know. Maybe that had something to do with it, I really don’t have an idea.”

NOTIFIED OF ANYTHING ELSE COMING?

“No.”

DID DEADSPIN REACH OUT BEFOREHAND?

“No. I don’t think that’s they’re M.O.”
(After Deadspin responded to this on Twitter and said it had reached out to someone unnamed in the Astros front office, Luhnow said that if that was the case, he was unaware.)

WERE THE ASTROS SPECIFICALLY TARGETED?

“I don’t know what the criminal’s motive was.”

HOW DO YOU VENT ANGER?

“It’s frustrating. All we can do is look as hard as we can to make sure this doesn’t happen. That’s what we’re going to do. When you’re attacked criminally by an unknown source, an unknown entity, it’s frustrating. You don’t know. We have law enforcement and they will do whatever they need to do.”

IS THIS UNPRECEDENTED?

“First time I’ve heard of anything like this. But that’s — we’ve moved on from the age of pencil and paper to a computer age where information needs to be accessed quickly and logically and a lot of it is in digital form.”