Bronson Arroyo has achieved a level of professional and financial success that he never dreamed of as a skinny young pitcher in Brooksville, Fla., a Tampa-St. Petersburg suburb that was once known as the "Home of the Tangerine." But he remains a staunch proponent of substance over style.

Arroyo has earned almost $72 million in his career, but he's inclined to spend it more on friends and life experiences than material things. He drives a BMW 750 that's eight years old and still lives in the 1,400-square-foot house that he built from scratch with his father, uncle and two helpers in 2003. He keeps a daily schedule with pen and paper and tucks it in his wallet each morning for handy reference. He still uses the mobile device that his agent, Terry Bross, got him in an endorsement deal with Sprint PCS in 2004. Yes, the hip, guitar-strumming guy with the flowing locks and cool persona walks around with a flip phone.

Bronson Arroyo has made 30 or more starts in each of the past nine seasons. Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports

For the sake of security and peace of mind, Arroyo just wishes the phone would start ringing and vibrating a little more often.

Arroyo's first career dalliance with free agency finds him in a puzzling netherworld. Like so many other starters, he's been waiting for Japanese free agent Masahiro Tanaka to be posted (or not) and provide some clarity to the market. Meanwhile, trade speculation surrounding the Tampa Bay Rays' David Price and the Chicago Cubs' Jeff Samardzija is also gumming up the works.

Ricky Nolasco, Scott Feldman, Phil Hughes and Scott Kazmir, younger pitchers with lesser portfolios, have all landed multiyear deals with guaranteed payouts of $49 million, $30 million, $24 million and $22 million, respectively. Ervin Santana, Matt Garza and Ubaldo Jimenez are generally regarded as the plums when the upper echelon starters do, indeed, start moving.

Arroyo fits … where, exactly? The New York Yankees touched base with him last week, and the Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks are all potential fits, in part because they're looking for a starter and Arroyo will not require the team that signs him to surrender a draft pick.

But some Internet buzz appears to have no basis in reality. Arroyo said the Cincinnati Reds have not offered him a one-year deal -- as has been reported -- and denies that he was ever close to an agreement with the Minnesota Twins. Those two teams could ultimately be in the mix for him, but at the moment, his 2014 destination is a mystery.

Although lots of scouts and evaluators think Arroyo would be better served pitching in the National League than the American, he's been hardened enough by life in the Great American Park band box in Cincinnati to think he can survive in any venue. He would prefer the East Coast to the West Coast, but that's not a deal-breaker by any means, and he's physically fit enough to think he can pitch at least three more seasons, even though he turns 37 in February.

From Arroyo's vantage point, it's up to potential suitors to make their move, and then he'll weigh his options and react. He conveys those sentiments in the type of candid, colorful imagery that Reds beat reporters have come to know and love in his eight seasons with Cincinnati.

"There's no point in me really thinking about where my perfect place is, because I don't know who's interested," Arroyo said. "It's like going to a party and the whole premise is to find a wife. There are 10 girls there, and three of them are smoking hot, but they don't even look in your direction twice, so there's no point in going after them. Then maybe somebody else comes along who didn't seem so attractive at first, and you like what she's saying and you think, 'Hey, maybe this is the one.'

"That's the way I see it. I can't pick and choose teams. They have to choose me, and I realize it could take a long time for them to get where they need to be. I've been fine, but if it's January 15th and I'm still spinning my wheels, I'll probably change my tune."

An undervalued asset

Amid a landscape of grunters, snorters and swing-and-miss inducers, Arroyo's biggest selling points are durability and resourcefulness. He's surpassed 200 innings in eight of the past nine seasons. The lone exception was 2011, when he battled Valley Fever, mononucleosis and a case of the whooping cough that caused him to lose 17 pounds, but he still made 32 starts and logged 199 innings. His next trip to the disabled list will be a career first.