LAKELAND, Fla. — Riley Greene knows what the numbers say. Or, to be more accurate, the data confirms what he already knew. He hit too many balls on the ground last season. Plain and simple.

“I took a lot away from it,” Greene said. “I feel like the stuff we worked on this offseason is really going to help with that.”

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Greene’s rookie season contained flashes of his high-end potential: Think the 448-foot bomb off Shohei Ohtani or the walk-off homer that landed in Comerica Park’s center-field shrubs. But there were struggles, too. For such a prodigious young hitter, one data point really stands out. Greene had an average launch angle of only 2.8 degrees. He hit groundballs 56.8 percent of the time — the 11th-highest rate among MLB hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

A focus this offseason, then, was finding ways to correct the problem. Greene has a fluid, natural swing, not one he’s prone to mess with. So his offseason wasn’t about major adjustments. Rather, it was about tapping into what he called “swing thoughts” — basically small cues as he enters the batter’s box, ways to make sure he gets off his best swing as often as possible.

“A lot of golfers have that one thought before they hop up to the ball,” Greene said. “Just like that. Just trying to get a feel for things. Same swing. Different thought.”

Look at the groundball rate, and Greene arrives at a dilemma that has plagued a generation of hitters. How do you get the ball in the air without becoming overly obsessed with launch angle?

Doesn’t seem like it will be too much of a problem for Greene. He’s the son of a hitting instructor; an intuitive player knows better than to tinker too much.

“I never really think ‘elevate,’” Greene said. “I just think line drive. Line drives will go over the fence, too. I think if I think ‘elevate,’ I’ll really drop (the shoulder) and start hitting it straight up instead of driving it out there.”

And on that point: Greene’s groundballs weren’t necessarily a function of a swing flaw. Rather, the issues were likely more about timing and pitch selection. Greene had a tendency to roll over too many pitches. It was something he was noticeably struggling with even when he was rehabbing his fractured foot last season in Triple A. His groundball rate there was 55 percent.

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Sometimes the roll-overs could be a result of being too early, pulling his head or his hips being too far open. Often, it may have been a simple function of pitch selection.

“I would say the fastest way to improve that is to pick better pitches to hit,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “You can’t create optimal angle off the bat on every pitch. It’s hard, so you’ve got to pick better pitches to hit.”

Regardless of cause, driving the ball in the air is a major part of how Greene can arrive at the next frontier. For a No. 5 overall draft pick, the ceiling doesn’t have a limit. Even in what amounted to a solid but unspectacular rookie season, Greene was worth 1.4 bWAR and had an OPS+ of 99. The Detroit BBWAA Chapter voted him Tiger of the Year.

In the field, his jumps graded out well, and he was worth two Defensive Runs Saved.

The question this year is not about whether Greene will be better. It’s more this: Just how good can he become?

Chances are Greene hits in the top portion of the Tigers’ order all season. He led off 76 games last year and could be a candidate to occupy the No. 1 spot yet again — though Hinch said that’s not a guarantee.

The Tigers will also experiment some this spring with Greene playing the outfield corners rather than center. That, though, is far from an indictment of Greene’s defensive abilities. It’s more a way of getting other players such as Jonathan Davis, Matt Vierling and Parker Meadows some time in center. Greene likely still sees the bulk of action in center field this year.

Tigers president Scott Harris even mentioned the dimension changes at Comerica Park being tailored toward Greene. The center-field wall, for example, is shortened to 7 feet high. Maybe a chance for Greene to rob a few home runs this year?

“Don’t be mistaken,” Harris said in January. “The wall height and Riley Greene are related. He’s pretty good at robbing home runs, and I think a 7-foot wall is going to give him more opportunity to help our pitchers out. Hopefully he can do it safely.”

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Greene’s dynamic play in the field does come with trade-offs. As he gets older, he may have to balance playing with reckless abandon with staying healthy. Playing top-tier center field defense can take its toll.

Greene, though, has no plans to change anything anytime soon. His offseason conditioning was similar to what he’s done in the past.

“I always say I’m playing for that guy on the mound because he’s working his ass off out there trying to throw strikes, trying to get guys out,” Greene said. “If someone puts a barrel on the ball, I want to make a play for him.”

Greene has the talent and the feel for the game. Perhaps he could emerge as one of the game’s brightest young stars.

“If he can pick better pitches early in counts, get the ball in the air a little bit and settle in for a full season, he’s going to be a really good player,” Hinch said.

But sometimes these things take time. A progression.

On the first day facing live pitchers this spring, Greene walked into the clubhouse shaking his head.

“Swung at like seven pitches in the dirt,” he said.

The next day, Greene settled in and lined a couple of balls into the outfield.

“Way better than yesterday,” he said after the workout.

One step at a time.

(Top photo: Mike Watters / USA Today)