ST. LOUIS >> High-level executives of the St. Louis Cardinals were not involved in the hacking of the Houston Astros’ player personnel database, an attorney hired by Cardinals said Wednesday.

The Cardinals said they retained the Dowd Bennett firm to handle an internal inquiry several months before this week’s disclosure that the FBI is investigating whether the team hacked into the Astros computer system that is used to track players and prospects.

“With what we have done so far, I am 100 percent confident that this does not touch upper management and does not involve people like John Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt,” Jim Martin, an attorney for the firm, told The Associated Press. Mozeliak is the Cardinals’ general manager and DeWitt is the team chairman.

The FBI has declined to confirm it is investigating the Cardinals, but a person familiar with the investigation earlier told the AP that federal authorities are investigating whether members of the team were to blame for what Major League Baseball called a “breach” of the Astros database. There has been no indication of how many employees might be under investigation and Martin’s comments were the first to suggest that any wrongdoing could be limited to the lower levels of the Cardinals organization.

The internal investigation is not finished.

“These are serious allegations that don’t reflect who we are as an organization,” DeWitt said. “We are committed to getting to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible, and if anyone within our organization is determined to be involved in anything inappropriate, they will be held accountable.”

DeWitt said the law firm is helping the team in providing requested information to the federal government. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said this week that subpoenas have been issued, though he did not disclose any details.

“The alleged conduct has no place in our game,” Mozeliak said. “We are committed to finding out what happened. To the extent we can substantiate that these allegations have merit, we will take appropriate action against anyone involved.”

The hack was first reported in June 2014 after some of the trade talk was published online. The Astros rely heavily on analytics in their evaluation of players and use an online database called Ground Control to house proprietary information. Jeff Luhnow, who headed the Cardinals’ scouting and player development department, was hired as the Astros general manager in December 2011 and he has helped turned the team into an AL contender.

Luhnow has not commented this week, but last year said the Astros were working with the FBI and MLB security to determine who was responsible for the breach.