Late Thursday night — or yesterday morning, to be precise — Brian Cashman finally turned off his phone.
It was 3:49 a.m. and unlike other long nights when the Yankees’ general manager might be working on a trade or talking with an agent, this time Cashman was just trying to fall asleep.
“My phone was silent,” Cashman said after spending the night in a sleeping bag outside the Covenant House Crisis Center in Midtown. “I couldn’t have slept more than hour out there. It was cold.”
Apparently, he accomplished the same amount as he did at the winter meetings.
“Our club is pretty set, except [we want to] shore up the back of the rotation,” Cashman said. “I made trade proposals that were rejected and received trade proposals that I rejected.”
That’s further along than he got with any free agents.
“The free agent guys haven’t made me any offers,” Cashman said. “The free agent [market] is moving at a glacial speed. And the category I’m shopping in, I don’t believe guys are jumping off the board this week. The players I’m interested in won’t be coming off the board anytime soon. But trade stuff is different. That can move fast, if someone finds the right match.”
He still hasn’t followed up with C.J. Wilson’s agent, Bob Garber, who expressed an interest in bringing the left-hander to New York to meet with the Yankees.
“They asked to come meet with me,” Cashman said, “but we didn’t set anything up and I haven’t talked to them again.”
Cashman, who is on the board of directors for the charity that helps homeless youths, took part in the Covenant House Crisis Center’s first CEO Solidarity Sleepout.
Despite a sleeping bag that was suitable for 20-degree temperatures and warm clothes, the general manager wasn’t able to beat the elements.
“No matter what you do, you’re still trying to sleep on the sidewalk and there’s construction going on,” Cashman said of the nearby 7 train expansion and the trucks that sped by the alley on 41st Street and 10th Avenue. “But that didn’t keep me up. The concrete did.”
Standing in the center at sunrise, Cashman anticipated a slow day on the work front. When asked about the five players he intended to protect in the upcoming Rule 5 draft, Cashman only could come up with four names.
“There was no comfort to be found,” Cashman said of his night on the street. “If this was an everyday event, I don’t know how I’d be able function.”
That was after just a few hours.
“To have to do this night after night, without being able to sleep, or getting very little and then trying to function in some capacity and to try to get your feet back on the ground, I can’t imagine how hard that would be,” he said.
* The Yankees added five players to their 40-man roster yesterday, protecting them from next month’s Rule 5 draft. Infielders David Adams and Corban Joseph, outfielder Zoilo Almonte and pitchers David Phelps and D.J. Mitchell will all be ineligible for the draft, which takes place during the winter meetings.
The Mets protected seven players, increasing the number of players on their 40-man roster to 38: Pitchers Robert Carson and Jeurys Familia, infielders Wilmer Flores and Reese Havens and outfielders Juan Lagares, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Cesar Puello.