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High School  | General  | 3/23/2020

Guzman Finds Home in DeLand

Blake Dowson     
Photo: Dean Guzman (Guzman family)

Dean Guzman has a lot of time on his hands right now.

The 2022 catching prospect from Pembroke Pines, Fla. is on a two-week hiatus from school. At that point, officials will make a decision whether to resume classes as normal or transition into online. Guzman thinks they will be online.

He also hasn’t had any contact with his high school baseball team, which is supposed to be in the middle of its spring season right now.

Luckily, he has a home gym. He’s been working out a lot.

“I’ve been trying to stay home as much as I can, so I’ve been working out at my house,” Guzman said. “Bench press, I have a squat rack, dumbbells. I have a rope so I can do rope swings and a bunch of different stuff.”

He has been working on his swing as much as possible, too. He doesn’t see live pitching right now, but he has made the most of the situation.

“I’ve been setting up a tee behind my house. I have a little pop-up net that I set up. So I do tee work and then some front toss with my dad,” he said.

Sounds a little therapeutic.

It has given Guzman time to think about where he wants to play in college, a list of possibilities that has gotten much bigger in the past year or so.

Perfect Game has Guzman ranked as the No. 18 catcher in his class, and a top-200 prospect overall.

He played much of last summer with Cannons Baseball Academy, catching for guys like Brandon Barriera and Evan Dobias. There weren’t many games without college coaches in the stands.

“During the middle of the summer, stuff really started to pick up…There were rumors that some colleges were coming to see my games. I never knew which ones. Supposedly they were coming to watch. But I just wanted to focus on my game.”

Guzman said catching his CBA teammates has developed him as much as anything else has. The work ethic and, as a byproduct, success, that players on the CBA team find, can be contagious.

Barriera is the No. 3 overall prospect in the 2022 class, and Dobias comes in at No. 57 overall.

“Every game, catching 90-93 mph,” Guzman said of his summer schedule. “That’s from Barriera, catching Dobias. Those are top Division I arms. Brandon is going to Vanderbilt and Evan is going to Virginia. They’re great arms to catch, and it helps my game a lot. It has worked really well for me.”

He capped 2019 off at the WWBA Underclass World Championship, where he hit .625 over the three games CBA played at the event. He was named to the All-Tournament Team for those efforts.

The first school Guzman reached out to himself was Stetson University, in DeLand, Fla. It was the first Division I school he made contact with, actually. He really liked their baseball program, and really liked the medical program the school has.

Guzman is a great student. He sports a GPA north of 4.0, which yes, is very difficult to do. He says he might want to go into the cardio field. His brother just graduated from the West Virginia Osteopathic School of Medicine.

A Division I baseball school with a good medical program checked the necessary boxes.

“I’ve been thinking about Stetson for a long time now, since this past summer,” Guzman said. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately and I had really been leaning toward Stetson and I finally really realized that I wanted to go there. I’ve been to a couple of their games up in DeLand and I’ve seen their facilities. I went to a camp there. I walked around their facilities, I walked around their school, and I went into one of their medical buildings, which is what I really want to go into.”

The Hatters are walking into one of the better prep catchers in the country.

And, with his listed 5-foot-9, 155-pound frame, there’s plenty of room to fill that out and develop even more.

Guzman hits the weights. He dedicates himself in that regard, so it will come.

“The Hatters are getting a really athletic, versatile-type with Guzman, who could help both behind the plate or in the outfield,” Jheremy Brown, Perfect Game’s National Crosschecker, said of Guzman. “He’s run as low as a 6.75 60-yard at our showcases, speaking to his athleticism. And in terms of offensive production, he has always performed in our events with a fluid righthanded stroke and plenty of physical projection to his overall profile.”

Guzman’s commitment to Stetson was a weight off his shoulders, he said.

It’s also one less thing to think about during his time off though, which isn’t necessarily a great thing.

He will continue to work out in his home gym, and he will be in the back yard with his net taking cuts with the tee.

He said his main focus now that he has chosen Stetson is his studies. His ambitions to work in the medical field are real, and he knows how much work it will take to make those dreams come true.

“I’m really focused on academics right now,” he said. “That was my main goal, to get committed to a college. Now since that has happened, I’m really trying to focus on my academics. I want to get as far as I can in baseball. Obviously, I’ve committed to play in college. But maybe go pro, or go into the medical field. Who knows.”
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