This is the most surprising offensive stat so far for the Cleveland Guardians

The early returns on the 2024 Cleveland Guardians offense are very promising. For starters, the team leads the AL in runs scored, though a four-game series against the Oakland A's never hurts when it comes to padding your numbers.

But the Guardians followed up that series with a solid series win against the Mariners, taking two out of three in Seattle, capped off by a dominating 8-0 victory Wednesday.

And while Cleveland is currently much-improved across just about every offensive category from a year ago, there is one stat that stands out the most.

The Most Surprising Offensive Stat of All for the Cleveland Guardians

You might want to sit down for this one: Heading into Thursday's slate, the Cleveland Guardians have the lowest ground-ball rate in the majors at 34.8%.

This is particularly important for the Guardians because, as currently constructed, they are just not going to be a homer-happy offense at any point. But this lineup is still full of hitters who make great contact and hardly ever strike out (they have the second-best strikeout percentage at 16.4%), so lifting the ball a bit more is going to pay dividends.

To put things in perspective, the Guardians had the ninth-highest ground-ball rate in baseball in 2022 at 44.4%.

Furthermore, the Guardians also rank seventh in MLB in line-drive rate at 24.2%, so there is clearly an emphasis on producing more extra-base hits. On that note, did I mention that Cleveland also has the most extra-base hits in the AL with 25?

As always this time of year, the small sample size must be cautioned. But it's clear the Guardians have entered this season with a new approach at the plate, and it's propelled the team to a hot start.