RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling How 'bout them Yankees- 2008 (and no other team matters!)

The calls started just after Chien-Ming Wang was hurt last week in Houston - Bronson Arroyo's friends jamming his cell phone, wondering if he's going to be the Yankees' midseason rotation fix.

"Trade rumors," Arroyo said Sunday. "I know this is probably my best year in my whole career to be traded - we're not playing our best ball and my salary (nearly) triples next year. Me and (fellow starter Aaron) Harang, both.

"If we're not winning, it all depends on the owner of the club. How long do you want to ride something and see if you're going to win or do you pull out the big-dollar guys and do something?"

Arroyo, perhaps best known in New York as the Red Sox pitcher with the ball on Alex Rodriguez's infamous "slap" play in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS, has been mentioned prominently in speculation in connection with just about any team in need of pitching. He is 4-6 with a 5.55 ERA for the Reds, who fell into last place in the NL Central with their loss to the Yankees Sunday. Arroyo is making $3.95 million this year and will earn $9.5 million in 2009 and $11 million in 2010.

While Arroyo sounds like he's on the fence about possibly coming to New York, he paid Yankees owner George Steinbrenner a compliment Sunday while noting that baseball owners are generally businessmen first.

"I don't know a lot of the other owners, but in my estimation, the only guy who didn't (care) about making money is Steinbrenner," Arroyo said. "He feels like at all costs he wants to win the World Series. When I look at John Henry and those guys in Boston, yeah, they want to win, but they're only going to push the salary so far. They want to stay under a certain line, so to me, they're businessmen first and baseball people second."

Arroyo pitched in Boston from 2003-05 and he says he's thought about the possibility of one day being a Yankee, but "it's a double-edged sword for me. When I first got traded, I hated the fact I wasn't going to play in a place that had that kind of rivalry and the expectations. I really liked that.

"But playing here for three years, you kind of settle into that and get comfortable where you live and not having stuff written in the paper about you off the field and not have so much scrutiny. I'll go wherever I go. I can make things work and be happy wherever. I get content in a place. Would I like to play for a contender? Yes. But I'm enjoying myself here."

And, Arroyo says, the Reds have the ingredients to contend. "In this division, we can't be in the cellar with the club we have," he said. "But we're (a long way) out and we have to make a move some time or people will start pulling parts off."