April 11th, 2017 at 6:03 am 
by Ron Cervenka On Monday afternoon the Dodgers announced that they had acquired right-handed pitcher Joe Gunkel from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for a player to be named later or cash consideration.
The 25-year-old Boynton Beach, Florida native has a career minor league record of 28-25 and 3.30 ERA, with nine saves in nine opportunities in 99 games (65 starts) over four professional seasons with the Red Sox (2013-15) and Orioles (2015-16) organizations. He has struck out 356 career strikeouts against only 75 walks in 430.1 innings pitched, while limiting opposing hitters to a .248 average and posting a 1.12 WHIP in his pro career. Last season, Gunkel pitched for Baltimore’s Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk for a combined 8-14 record and 4.02 ERA in 28 starts, while striking out 109 and walking 21 in his 161.0 innings of work.
Joe Gunkel
(Photo courtesy of MiLB.com)
Gunkel was initially selected by the Red Sox in the 18th round of the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft out of West Chester University of Pennsylvania. He was named as a mid-season All-Star while with Boston’s Lowell Spinners of the short-season New York-Penn League in 2013 and a mid-season All-Star in their Greenville Drive of the Low Single-A South Atlantic League in 2014. He was designated for assignment by the Orioles on April 7, having been traded to the O’s on June 3, 2015 in exchange for Oakland A’s outfielder Alejandro De Aza and cash.
The addition of Gunkel brings the Dodgers 40-man roster to a full 40 players.
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Yesterday’s game was so difficult to listen to thank God for the mute button interrupting the game for Dancing with The Turds, pretending there was only one team and who has a feature on a team’s fans on sex, pregnancy and winning a championship
Nothing to do with the Gunkel signing, but yeah, it was a horribly one-sided ESPN broadcast (go figure). Highlight of the night was when ESPN finally acknowledged the Pantone 294s.
I also had it muted and listened to Rick and Charlie (uggh) on AM 570 LA Sports.
Isn’t ESPN s’posed to be neutral?
Ron, how do you see Gunkel being used? I originally thought that the Dodgers were not overwhelmed with Wilmer Font and Fabio Castillo as starters in AAA, and Gunkel would join the rotation. I know Castillo was moved to Tulsa on 4/10, but once Urias is recalled to LA it would seem Castillo would be strongly considered to be moved back to OKC. Gunkel has predominantly been a starter the last two years, but his ceiling seems to be a bit higher as a reliever. Curious about how you think he will be utilized.
Also, have you heard anything on Josh Sborz or Andrew Sopko?
My gut is that the Dodgers don’t plan to utilize Gunkel as a starter, at least not initially and certainly not at the MLB level. I do, however, see them keeping him stretched out as a long reliever at OKC, with the possibility of moving him into a starting role there, if necessary.
As much as I was impressed with how hard Fabio Castillo threw during ST, there are several (many, in fact) others that I see as more valuable to the big club ahead of him, including (brace yourself) Shea Spitzbarth and/or Andrew Istler.
I agree that Castillo will (or at least may) return to OKC when Julio is brought up – which may happen within the next three weeks.
Gunkel two scoreless innings in relief for the OKC Dodgers tonight on one hit and one strikeout.
Could he be that gold nugget?