Yonatan Henriquez
Week: 3 G, 16 AB, .438/.438/.688, 7 H, 1 2B, 0 3B, 1 HR, 0 BB, 3 K, 4/4 SB (High-A)
2025 Season: 104 G, 349 AB, .264/.354/.395, 92 H, 18 2B, 2 3B, 8 HR, 51 BB, 72 K, 33/41 SB, .308 BABIP (Single-A) / 7 G, 28 AB, .250/.344/.357, 7 H, 1 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR, 4 BB, 8 K, 2/2 SB, .350 BABIP (High-A)
The Brooklyn Cyclones are in the South Atlantic League playoffs and Henriquez is one of a handful of Cyclones having a terrific postseason. In Game One of the South Atlantic League Division Series, he went 1-5 with
a stolen base against the Greensboro Grasshoppers and in Game Two went 2-5 with a double and two stolen bases. In Game One of the South Atlantic League Championship Series against the Hub City Spartanburgers on Sunday, he went 4-6 with a home run, stolen base, and 6 runs driven in.
Henriquez was signed by the Mets at the beginning of the 2022 international free agent signing period out of Puerto Plata, the third-largest city in the Dominican Republic. The 17-year-old made his professional debut with the DSL Mets 1 later in the year and hit .247/.390/.344 in 31 games, hitting 3 doubles, 2 home runs, stealing 5 bases in 11 attempts, and drawing 18 walks to 27 strikeouts. He came stateside in 2023 and appeared in 43 games for the FCL Mets, hitting .221/.353/.300 with 8 doubles, 1 home run, 7 stolen bases in 13 attempts, and drawing 29 walks to 34 strikeouts.
He remained in the FCL to start the 2024 and spent the majority of his season there, appearing in 40 games and hitting .289/.464/.377 with 6 doubles, 2 triples, 0 home runs, 15 stolen bases, and 34 walks to 23 strikeouts. He was promoted to the St. Lucie Mets at the beginning of August and spent the last month of the season there, appearing in 26 games and hitting .169/.245/.202 with 3 doubles, 0 home runs, 0 stolen bases, and 7 walks to 26 home runs.
Henriquez remained in St. Lucie and spent the majority of the 2025 season there. Appearing in 104 games, the 20-year-old hit .264/.354/.395 with 18 doubles, 2 triples, 8 home runs, 33 stolen bases in 41 attempts, and drew 51 walks to 72 strikeouts. He was promoted to High-A Brooklyn in late August and appeared in 7 regular season games for them, batting .250/.344/.357 with 1 double, 1 triple, 0 home runs, 2 stolen bases in as many attempts, and drawing 4 walks to 8 strikeouts.
From the right side of the plate Henriquez stands extremely still and extremely open, holding his hands low, resting his bat on his shoulders until his load. He has a minimal weight shift, closing up as he does so. From the left side of the plate, he stands much more closed up, angling his bat at almost 11:00. Henriquez hit .255/.351/.381 as a left-handed batter in 2025 and .293/.361/.440 as a right-handed batter, accruing nearly four times as many at-bats as a left-handed batter against right-handed pitchers than a right-handed batter against southpaws.
During his time in St. Lucie, Henriquez was almost a dead-red fastball hitter. Fastballs composed roughly 57% of all balls he put in play, and he did damage, hitting .313/.414/.466 against them with a 22.6% Whiff Rate. Against everything else, however, the numbers are not encouraging at the moment. Versus non-fastballs, Henriquez hit .188/.261/.275 with a 37.9% Whiff Rate. More specifically, he hit 179 /.288 /.250 against changeups, .213 /.264 /.362 against sliders, and .188 /.229 /.219 against curves, with 40.7%, 38.5%, and 29.8% Whiff Rates, respectively. He was marginally better against breaking balls as a right-handed batter than as a left-handed batter, and was considerably better against fastballs as a right-handed batter than as a left-hander.
After the bulk of his playing time coming in the infield, at third base, in 2024, Henriquez spent the most of his playing time in the outfield this season, in center. He certainly has the raw speed to field the position, but given that all but 10 of his career games in center came this season, there is still a lot of learning the position that needs to be done.
Will Watson
Week: 2 G (1 GS), 9.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 14 K (Double-A)
2025 Season: 10 G (8 GS), 39.1 IP, 30 H, 17 R, 16 ER (3.66 ERA), 21 BB, 43 K, .276 BABIP (Single-A) / 14 G (13 GS), 63.2 IP, 45 H, 14 R, 12 ER (1.70 ERA), 28 BB, 77 K, .288 BABIP (High-A) / 4 G (2 GS), 18.1 IP, 13 H, 8 R, 7 ER (3.44 ERA), 9 BB, 22 K, .268 BABIP
A Washington native, Will Watson attended California Lutheran University after graduating from Burlington Edison High School in Burlington, Washington and going undrafted in the 2021 MLB Draft. He appeared in 20 games for the Kingsmen, all out of the bullpen, and posted a 1.82 ERA in 34.2 innings, allowing 18 hits, walking 13, and striking out 40. Additionally, he appeared in 36 games as an infielder and hit .247/.346/.371 with 7 doubles, 2 triples, 0 home runs, 4 stolen bases in 5 attempts, and drew 10 walks to 29 strikeouts. He transferred to San Joaquin Delta College for his sophomore season and appeared in 19 games for the Mustangs, starting 5. He had a successful season, posting a 2.97 ERA in 57.2 innings with 31 hits allowed, 21 walks, and 82 strikeouts, and was drafted by his hometown Seattle Mariners in the 20th round of the 2023 MLB Draft, the 607th player selected overall. He could not agree to terms with Seattle and elected not to sign professionally. Instead, he transferred to the University of Southern California for his junior season. He appeared in 16 games for the Trojans, starting 9, and posted a 3.93 ERA in 50.1 innings with 44 hits allowed, 27 walks, and 46 strikeouts.
The Mets selected Watson with their 7th round selection in the 2024 MLB Draft, the 203rd pick overall, and signed him for $281,300, just slightly below the MLB-assigned slot value of $283,800. He was assigned to the St. Lucie Mets and allowed one run in 2.2 innings, giving up 2 hits, walking 1, and striking out 3. The Mets had him start out the 2025 season in St. Lucie, and he spent roughly two months there, posting a 3.66 ERA in 39.1 innings over 10 games, allowing 30 hits, walking 21, and striking out 43. He was promoted to High-A Brooklyn in early June and spent the summer in Coney Island, posting a 1.70 ERA in 63.2 innings over 14 games, allowing 45 hits, walking 28, and striking out 77. In late August, Watson was promoted to Double-A Binghamton. Since August 25th, the right-hander has a 3.44 ERA in 18.1 innings over four games with 13 hits allowed, 9 walks, and 22 strikeouts.
Watson is slightly on the smaller side for a pitcher, standing 6’1” and weighing 180-pounds, but he is athletic. The right-hander throws from a low-three-quarters arm slot with a long arm action through the back. He drops and drives and gets good extension off the mound. Watson is prone to rushing his delivery and having his upper and lower halves come out of sync, negatively impacting his command.
Watson utilizes a four-pitch mix, mainly leaning on his four-seam fastball, changeup, slider and cutter.
His fastball sits in the low-to-mid-90s, averaging 95 MPH; since turning pro, he has experienced a slight velocity improvement, something he attributes to having access to professional workout equipment and elite coaching. With 2,300 RPM of backspin, Watson was able to average 15.7 inches of induced vertical break on his fastball in his 39.1 innings while at St. Lucie and presumably has put up similar numbers in Brooklyn and Binghamton. Given his arm slot, working up in the zone has not been intuitive for Watson, and his control problems do not help either; despite the excellent metrics, the pitch plays down currently, though there is certainly plenty of time for it to improve with better command.
Watson started developing his changeup in 2024 while playing at USC and the pitch has quickly developed into an above-average offering. Sitting in the mid-to-high-80s and featuring an extremely high spin rate for a changeup, his changeup has screwball-like break similar to Devin Williams’ “airbender” changeup, dropping off the table while darting arm-side.
His slider sits in the mid-to-high-80s and features gyroscopic break with only slight horizontal movement. With a spin rate lower than most sliders, the pitch is almost curveball-like in its break, with big vertical bend. When Watson has a feel for the pitch and is able to command it, he throws it to both sides of the plate, back-dooring left-handed batters and getting right-handed batters to chase away.
His changeup, generally speaking, gets more swings and is thrown in the zone more, but batters don’t chase it as much, and as such, the pitch has a higher BB% than his slider; conversely, his slider gets slightly fewer swings and is thrown in the zone a bit less, but batters go chasing after it more and results in fewer walks as a result.
Rounding out his arsenal is his cutter, a pitch that he only began throwing this season. Sitting in the high-80s-to-low-90s, the pitch has primarily been used as a transitory pitch between his fastball and slider, being thrown off of the former to set up the latter. While batters have not had many issues with the pitch, it has not been completely demolished, and if Watson can refine it, there is a change that it can develop into a more usable fourth offering.
