Hey, what does this stolen data tell us about our favorite baseball team?

Even as someone who takes sardonic glee in seeing super-protected, nine-figure (at the least) organizations with elastic profits getting the occasional bit egg on the face, I am going to go out on a limb and say it's just wrong to steal proprietary data from a major league franchise. The Astros having their Ground Control system hacked is maybe the 97th most immoral act I read about on Monday, and maybe it's proprietary data about a silly game, but it's their proprietary data and they paid for it. Imagine that if instead of proprietary data, it was donuts, and imagine that instead of being the Astros' donuts, they were your donuts that were stolen. Yeah, not so funny now, you sad, donut-less schlub.

Now, let's look at that stolen data!

Deadspin--who else?--posted an exhaustive review of all the internal communications stolen from the Houston Astros' database, which included a couple of mentions of dealings with Rick Hahn and those plucky Chicago White Sox. The White Sox behave about how they should throughout, except for the part where they don't trade Dayan Viciedo.

10/31/2013

I spoke with [White Sox GM Rick Hahn] today. They have definite high interest in Castro. 

Here are the Sox being unabashedly interested in a catcher coming off a .276/.350/.485 season, while they were dealing with the worst offensive production from the position in the league. When they were returning to camp with Flowers, the White Sox talk of being happy with what he does and worrying more about his pitch-calling than his offense sounded like them trying to make the best of a situation they couldn't find a solution for over the offseason. Sure enough, here's them trying to pull in a top-10 offensive catcher.

Castro's struggled through an awful first half, however. So, all's a wash that ends a wash. Some of the other demands the Astros made in this make it sound like they'd have to be worked for a while to come down to a manageable price for Castro. 

He said they have four untouchable players - Sale, Quintana, Abreu and Garcia. 

As reported by beat reporters at the time, the inclusion of Quintana surprised, but has since been fortified by the contract extension he signed in Spring Training.

It seems national reporters can't take notice of Jose Quintana without speculating how good he would look on a team worthy of national attention, but the party line about Quintana has been consistent for at least seven months.

Other than that, they would consider anything. He said they have had some inquiries about Santiago, Reed, Jones, and may consider moving Viciedo.

Since the Sox wound up trading Santiago and Reed, and Jones was tapped to be the heir of Reed's vacated bullpen throne, the Sox certainly didn't renege on making those three available, but that last clause is haunting. "May consider."

Which side is treating Viciedo as a trade target in this hushed tone of reverence? The White Sox were associated with trying to pawn their blessed right-handed power prospect off on the Mariners, and the Astros didn't ever seriously discuss Viciedo again, so it's likely that no one does, but he's being mentioned alongside other assets here.

11/13/2013

[Rick Hahn] asked [Luhnow] if Hector Santiago would entice us. JL said that was not enough for Castro. RH came back later in the day and asked if Bourjos (from LAA) would entice us in a Castro context?

Santiago, by all indicating statistics and 2014 results, had an unsustainably good 2014 and needed to be dealt at the height of his value in the offseason. The White Sox not only did this, but, apparently after finding an interested party in the Angels, tried to leverage their interest into assets they could shop to the Astros for Castro swap. Even if it didn't work, they basically wound up pulling the same trick to nab Adam Eaton.

The Angels, despite appearing to be the only sucker the Sox could find on Hector, seem to be doing just fine and well-prepared to return the favor this week in Chicago.