Minimal surface in a ball

This result (and several similar) proved in a nice paper Alexander, H.; Osserman, R. "Area bounds for various classes of surfaces." Amer. J. Math. 97 (1975), no. 3, 753--769.

This has just been solved (in full generality) by Brendle and Hung using the first variation formula together with a clever (if mysterious) choice of vector field.

One obvious observation (of which you are probably already aware) is that if the boundary of the surface is connected, it must have length at least $2\pi\sqrt{1-r^2}$, or else it is contained in a lune whose convex hull does not contain a point at distance $r$ from the center. In the very special case that your surface is a topological disk transverse to a foliation of the ball by concentric spheres, the coarea formula (obtained by integrating the lengths of the intersection of your surface with concentric spheres, and using this observation) gives an estimate for the area, but a quick calculation shows that it is not good enough to prove what you want.