This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger’s Angels Beat newsletter, handled by Brent Maguire. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Several Angels starting pitchers have produced excellent 2026 seasons.
José Soriano got off to a historic start with a 0.24 ERA in his first six outings and has been solid overall with a 3.42 ERA in 18 starts. Reid Detmers, meanwhile, has 3.88 ERA in 17 starts but has excellent underlying numbers that make him an intriguing trade candidate at the Deadline. While those two have been good, don’t sleep on Walbert Ureña.
The 22-year-old Ureña has a 3.14 ERA and 69 strikeouts in his first 15 outings (13 starts) of the season. Ureña entered the season as a relatively unknown prospect -- MLB Pipeline ranked him as the No. 18 prospect in an Angels system that placed 28th among all farm systems. While it was easy to see Soriano and Detmers taking this next step, there was no such expectation for Ureña. The young right-hander will toe the rubber for his next start on Thursday in Seattle.
Here’s a quick rundown of Ureña’s big step forward, some reasons for optimism and areas he could improve upon.
The stuff is legit
Watch one Ureña start and it’s immediately obvious why he’s developed into a legitimate MLB arm.
Ureña throws a pair of fastballs -- a sinker and four-seamer -- that cumulatively average 97.5 mph. That’s tied with Roki Sasaki for the seventh-best fastball velocity among pitchers who have thrown at least 500 four-seamers and sinkers.
The sinker is Ureña’s most-utilized pitch but only by a fraction -- he throws it 32.1% of the time compared to a 32.0% rate on his bread-and-butter changeup. Ureña’s changeup sits at 90.5 mph and has 17 inches of arm-side run, and has legitimately been one of the best of its kind in baseball.
Ureña’s changeup has been worth six runs, according to Statcast’s Run Value system. That’s tied for fifth-best among all changeups, only trailing the offerings from Cristopher Sánchez (+15), Nick Martinez (+8), Shane McClanahan (+8) and Robbie Ray (+7). Whether it’s the pitch profile or the sheer results, it’s been a great pitch.
The right-hander also throws a mid-80s sweeper that has produced strong results this season -- opposing hitters have just three hits in 31 at-bats ending on the pitch (.097 BA). While his 22.0% strikeout rate is a tick below league average, his 27.8% whiff rate ranks in the 70th percentile.
Groundball and weak contact machine
Ureña’s stuff produces a healthy amount of whiffs, but opposing hitters also have a hard time doing much against him even when they do put balls in play. By most contact quality measures, Ureña ranks extremely well.
Hitters have a tough time doing much against Ureña, with more than half of his batted balls ending up on the ground. The combination of whiffs and weak contact gives Ureña a strong baseline for getting to his success in multiple ways.
Areas for improvement
While Ureña has done quite well with producing whiffs and weak contact, his command is well below average at present.
Ureña is walking opposing hitters 11.8% of the time, which places him in the 17th percentile of all MLB pitchers. His 44.7% zone rate is below the league-average mark, while his 53.4% first-pitch strike rate means he’s falling behind in the count on the first pitch nearly half of the time.
Strike-throwing and command issues have long been a problem for Ureña, who routinely walked this many hitters (and oftentimes more) during his time in the Minors. That explains why Ureña has been pegged as a future reliever, a title he’s trying to shed with his success as a starter.