News out of the A’s minor league system has it that 2004 Vancouver Canadians catcher and 1st round draft pick, Landon Powell, has trimmed down to 245lbs (and trust me, that’s a considerable amount of trimming), and has never looked better behind the plate.

From the SF Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:

Landon Powell, all 6-foot-3, 245 pounds of him, put on a show for those A’s players who were working out in the weight room at Papago Park on Monday. The catcher grabbed a jump rope and skipped through a snazzy routine, whipping the rope from side to side, whistling it around and around, alternating feet and throwing in some speed work.

He’s done that since he was a kid, Powell said, using the drills to make his feet quicker behind the plate. It has worked — manager Bob Geren said Powell looks terrific defensively, and specifically mentioned his footwork.

Two years ago, Powell couldn’t do any conditioning after major knee surgery. He missed the entire season, and his weight ballooned to 280 pounds. That became a concern, slowing Powell down on the bases, and the A’s development people began to prod their former No. 1 draft pick to slim down.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the fact that fellow 2004 draftee, Kurt Suzuki, is generally considered a year or two away from the bigs was also a major kick up the backside for Powell, but hey, whatever it takes…

"With that body, he wasn’t going to play in the big leagues,” director of player development Keith Lieppman said. "It’s been an ongoing process, and we eventually got to either/or. There were certain incentives, and then everything came into perspective. We wanted him to imagine what he’d look like in a major-league game — did he want to look like Jason Varitek or like he’s 280 pounds?”

The A’s flat out told Powell, 24, that he wouldn’t come to big-league camp this spring unless he weighed 245 pounds. That’s precisely what he got down to after becoming more aware of his eating habits. "Now, I don’t think of food as a matter of taste — I think of it as fuel,” he said. "I eat for energy rather than for fun.”

This is even better news when you consider that, as a catcher, his surgically repaired knee would never have held up more than a couple of years under his old poundage. If the big guy can bring it down even further, say to 230 lbs, and can retain that power stroke that had him going 1st round in the draft, he may just chase Suzuki all the way to the bigs.

So which catching prospect will win the race to the starting spot in the majors? Tough to say. If it comes down to pure talent, Powell will beat Suzuki every time - Powell has been a star since he was a kid, while Suzuki only made his school team as a walk-on, but Zook has always had Powell beaten in the hard work department, having built a career on essentially heart, perspiration, determination and balls. If pushed, I’d give the nod to Suzuki, but if the big man is slimming down and taking his job seriously at last, boy howdy, are we going to have an embarassment of riches on our hands behind the plate.

Also in Slusser’s piece, you’ll find some big news on Dan Meyer’s potential recovery from an injury that has all but killed his career - could he be about to (finally) crack the big team? 

On Monday, Meyer’s bullpen session went so well, he kept asking to throw more, staying out in the drizzle after the rest of the pitchers had gone inside. "It was raining, and I was having fun,” Meyer said. "It’s been awhile since I’ve felt like that.”

He wowed John Baker, who had caught the lefty numerous times at Triple-A Sacramento but had never seen him like he was Monday. "His mechanics had really changed because of that injury,” Baker said. "Now he throws like I think he did with Atlanta, and it’s so different. It’s so drastic, even the ball spins differently. It comes out of his hand differently. … He looks like a new person.”

Picture credit: Dave Sandford/Scout.com