Angels have prime Walbert Ureña opportunity now that Arte Moreno is on his way out the door

The Arte Moreno era is (almost) finally over. The record $4 billion sale of the Los Angeles Angels to Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Rams and Nuggets, and many others, was announced Tuesday and, once complete, will close the book on more than two decades. The time started with genuine ambition, but ended with nearly a decade of losing baseball and the longest active playoff drought in baseball. 

We all know how much Moreno profited from the team, showing that the product on the field wasn’t good enough, but the support was. And what Moreno will leave is more than a bad roster. He’s leaving a pattern of never being afraid to shell out for outside stars, but almost never being willing to put out the money to extend a homegrown starting pitcher. Kroenke inherits that as part of the Angels’ legacy, and it opens the door for Walbert Ureña.

Angels have chance to change course with Walbert Ureña after Arte Moreno exit

The last time the Angels signed a starter they developed to a multi-year extension was Jered Weaver. He agreed to the $85 million deal in August 2011. Before that, Ervin Santana and John Lackey signed shorter extensions. Those are the three starting pitchers extended during the Moreno era. Three in 23 years is wild. 

There were undoubtedly development issues that limited the number of pitchers who should have gotten extensions, but here are a few who didn’t who could have:

• Jarrod Washburn
• Ramon Ortiz
• Joe Saunders
• Garrett Richards
• Matt Shoemaker
• Andrew Heaney
• Griffin Canning
• Patrick Sandoval
• *ahem* Shohei Ohtani
• Reid Detmers
• Jose Soriano

Not all of those would have been wise extensions, but they were all homegrown pitchers who showed something in their time with the Angels. Detmers is still a possibility, but they’ve let a lot of pitching get away.

Ureña feels like the perfect pitcher with whom to buck that trend. He wasn’t on any top-100 lists, but has been arguably the best thing about this brutal season. In 123.1 innings through Tuesday, he’s put up a 2.85 ERA with 120 strikeouts and just 91 hits allowed to go with a 1.26 WHIP. He pitched two games as a reliever in March and was sent to Triple-A to stretch back out, and has been a revelation ever since. 

Nobody needs the full scouting report, but a sinker and four-seamer that are both close to 98 MPH on average, along with a changeup with a 35.7 percent whiff rate that gets some of the ugliest swings you’ll see, is something to build on. Scouts were pretty confident he was a reliever, but he’s held up quite well as a starter, and it would be fun if the Angels rewarded that.

Before Soriano was moved at the deadline, the rotation outlook was riding on the trio of Ureña, Soriano, and Detmers, as those three had provided most of the value in the rotation this year. Now that Soriano is gone, it’s down to Ureña and Detmers, with both under team control for at least another two years (and another six for Ureña). 

Sometimes that control can excuse inaction. The lockout that is approaching on December 1 clouds some things too, but given where Ureña started and the relatively small amount he’s set to earn for at least the next two years - and really the next three or four - this feels like a great time to look at getting him locked in even beyond his arbitration years. 

Being cautious does make sense in a vacuum, but spending $4 billion to buy a team means this isn’t in a vacuum. Kroenke isn't walking into a bad situation. The Angels payroll is in the bottom of the middle third, way too low for a team in this market. There are only two contracts on the books right now for 2027, Yusei Kikuchi and Mike Trout, and only Trout on the books beyond that. If there’s ever a moment to signal that the starting pitcher extension drought is over, now is the time.

Get Ureña locked into a below-market deal now, before he starts getting into the real money in arbitration. That’s exactly the kind of move that used to define the franchise before turning to other teams’ stars to build the roster. Fourteen years is long enough. Kroenke doesn’t inherit Moreno’s excuses, and he certainly shouldn’t make any new ones.

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