Smoltz Clears Waivers, Reaches Deal With Cards

The Cardinals continued a summer-long streak of big-name acquisitions this afternoon, agreeing to a deal with the recently-released John Smoltz, according to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Cards, who have already added Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday, are exptected to slot Smoltz into their rotation. They'll only be responsible for the pro-rated portion of the major league minimum, a total of about $100k at this point.As Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows, the Cards' rotation will be imposing if Smoltz can recover from an ugly stint with the Red Sox. Nick Steiner of the Hardball Times says such a recovery is possible and David Golebiewski of FanGraphs agrees.