Halos Today

Angels Prospect Profile: Walbert Urena Took Huge Strides in 2025

Urena honed his two seam fastball and pitched himself to the brink of an MLB spot.
Jeff Joiner|
Feb 21, 2024; Tempe, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Angels relief pitcher Walbert Urena (93) poses for a photo on media day in Tempe, AZ. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Feb 21, 2024; Tempe, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Angels relief pitcher Walbert Urena (93) poses for a photo on media day in Tempe, AZ. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

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Los Angeles Angels

Prior to this year's Rule V draft, Angels general manager Perry Minasian added right hander Walbert Urena to the 40 man roster. This prevented other MLB clubs from poaching him and represented a major step forward for the Venezuelan hurler. Heading into the 2024 season, not many would have expected to see Urena end the year on the Angels roster.

Signed for $140,000 in early 2021, Urena made his professional debut in 2022 and showed a lot of velocity but very little command. His fastball has always been his calling card and grades out as a 70 on the scouts 20-80 scale. That means it projects to be considerably better than MLB average.

Control, however, has never been Urena's calling card. As he progressed through the minors he continued to show flashes of dominant stuff mixed with lapses in control. In 2024 he issued 54 free passes in only 77.1 innings at the High A level.

Urena began working on a two seam fastball last year and the results started showing in 2025.

Midway through the 2024 season, Urena started throwing a two seam fastball with sinking action in hopes to improve his control. The results were not immediate, but his numbers over the second half of the season improved considerably. The two seamer both got swings and misses and groundballs. His second half results earned Urena a chance to start the 2025 season at the Double A level.

Urena got off to a nice start for AA Rocket City, showing form like this:

As you can see from the video, Urena has a nasty sinking fastball and the makings of a good breaking ball. His changeup is also a plus pitch and rates as his second best pitch overall. The main thing holding him back is his walk rate.

The walk rate improved dramatically in 2025, when Urena cut the free passes to 4.66 per 9 innings across 141 innings; the innings total is also a new career high. If he can keep that rate, he has a chance at a rotation job at the Major League level.

Urena was the Southern League Pitcher of the Week September 14th, 2025.

As with most young prospects, Urena mixed in some rough outings with his gems. But this year he was much better at limiting the damage and there were more good outings than bad. His stuff continued to play well at AA and he earned Pitcher of the Week honors shortly before being promoted to AAA Salt Lake City for the remainder of the year.

Here are highlights from another outing last season:

Walbert is assuredly going to get an invite to big league camp in Tempe this year so the big league coaches can get a close look at him. As of now the coaching staff will hope to keep the improvement in his walk rate and add or develop a true out pitch. Urena managed 125 strikeouts last season which is a hair under 8 K's per 9 innings.

Pitchers are able to have success pitching to contact and getting lots of ground ball outs, but adding just a little more strikeout ability would go a long way for Urena.

He is also pretty handy with the glove. It would be a shame to write this piece and not include this web gem.

For Angels fans looking towards the future, Urena is an interesting story to follow this year. Look for him to get into some early games in Spring Training then get sent to AAA. Angels on SI is going to cover the farm system more this year than ever before, so follow this page for updates on Urena and other prospects.

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Jeff Joiner
JEFF JOINER