LDB Rules - User contributions [en]

The Game

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LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. During the regular season, each team will play another team for one week at a time (Monday to Sunday)<ref>With the exception of the first and eleventh weeks, which may extend beyond seven days.</ref> for a total of 20 weeks, with each statistical category representing one game, meaning 12 games are in play each week. After the regular season, top-performing teams advance to the playoffs.

== Schedule ==
Scheduling will be announced by the Commissioner before the [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]] each year. Schedules are unbalanced, meaning that teams will play teams within their league more often than teams outside their league. Each team will play their divisional opponents twice each, and each team from the other division once. The only exception to this will be the team’s designated "natural rival." Each team will be paired randomly with one team from the other division, and will play that team twice instead of once.

== Scoring ==
Lucid Dream Baseball scores the ten active batters and up to eleven active pitchers each day on the following statistics:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="500"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Scoring
|-
! width="200" | Batters
! Pitchers
|-
| On-Base Percentage (OBP)
| Net Quality Wins: NQW = 4QS + W - L - 2GS
|-
| On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage: OPS = OBP + SLG
| Adjusted WHIP: aWHIP = (H + BB + HBP)/INN
|-
| Runs Scored (R)
| STARR: (RIP+3*SV+3*HLD-8*BS-8*RL)/4
|-
| Adjusted Runs Batted In: aRBI = RBI - GIDP
| Home Runs Allowed (HRA)
|-
| Home Runs (HR)
| Pitcher Strikeouts (K)
|-
| Adjusted Stolen Bases: ASB = SB - CS/2
| Earned Run Average (ERA)
|}

Just as in baseball, there can be no ties. If a statistical category ends in a tie at the conclusion of the week, the home team will win all such categories.

===Rain Delay Relief===
In the event of a rain delay, if the starting pitcher of such a game has ERA of 4.50 or less in the innings he has pitched in that game, he will receive a 0 in NQW instead of a -2.

The rule will apply in the following situations:

*If a starting pitcher, who has pitched less than 6 innings in a game, is removed from a game immediately following a weather delay; or
*If a starting pitcher does not pitch a full 6 innings because a game is deemed officially completed before the completion of the 6th inning due to a rainout or other weather-related game shortening.

This rule will be self-enforced. Teams will have to identify situations where this has occurred on their teams and notify the Commissioner within seven days of the occurrence. The Commissioner will then make the necessary scoring changes.

== Roster Requirements ==
Each week, each team must meet the league minimum innings pitched requirement (IP) of 44 innings per week. Additionally, teams must have an eligible player in each positional roster spot (but not designated hitters) each day. If a team fails to meet these minimum requirements, the following penalties are applied:

=== Batting and Fielding Penalties ===
For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

=== Pitching Penalties ===
If a team fails to reach the required 44 innings pitched in a given week, that team will automatically lose the following categories: NQS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and STARR. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,<ref>Fuck-ups</ref>. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be no financial penalty. After the first instance of missed innings, each additional week a team misses innings will cost that team's owner $1 million, to be levied immediately upon the completion of the LDB Championship Series for that season.

== McQueeney Performance Penalties <ref>Known as "McQueeneys"</ref>==
The McQueeney Performance Penalty deducts LDB cash from a team's subsequent yearly budget when that team finishes the regular season with a sub-.400 winning percentage (including any FU losses) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

:LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-WL%)), rounded to the nearest half million

Additionally:

*The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
*The Commissioner may, at his discretion, grant an exemption from the penalties for any team that actively and competently manages its roster throughout the season and does not make a concerted effort to sell players on its active major league roster for future value (i.e., draft picks, cash, or AA players).

For examples, a team with a .380 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-38%)) = LDB$3 million; a team with a .333 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$10 million; and a team with a .200 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$30 million.

== All-star Break ==
LDB will not hold regular games during the week of the MLB All-star Game. That week, at the option of the Commissioner, LDB may either: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and/or (2) fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week, if feasible.

In the event LDB holds an All-star Game, such game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued that week. The Commissioner will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. The division that wins the LDB All-star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series.

== Playoffs ==

=== Advancing to the Playoffs ===
The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Three teams from each division make the playoffs for a total of six total playoff teams. The team with the best record in each division receives a first-round bye while the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best records in each division play each other in the first round. The higher seeded team in each round is the home team. The home team in the championship series (the "Lucid Dream Series") is determined by the winner of the [[#All-star_Break|All-star Game]]. The tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs, determine seeding, and home field advantage in the event no LDB All-star Game takes place are as follows:

# Overall Points
# Head-to-head Record
# Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
# Intra-division Record
# Overall Roto Performance
# Commissioner’s Coin Flip (with witnesses)

In case three teams are tied in overall points, a three team head-to-head tiebreaker is resolved by independent pairwise comparisons. For example:

:Consider 3 teams: A, B, and C:
:* A beat B in Week 1, 9-5
:* A beat C in Week 2, 10-4
:* B beat A in Week 3, 13-1
:* B tied C in Week 4, 7-7
:* B beat C in Week 5, 8-6
:* C beat A in Week 6, 11-3

:Therefore, head-to-head:
:A vs. B = (9+1) vs. (5+13) = 10 vs. 18.
:So B > A

:A vs. C = (10+3) vs. (4+11) = 13 vs. 15.
:So C > A

:B vs. C = (7+8) vs (7+6) = 15 vs. 13
:So B > C

:Therefore, B>C>A, and so B and C make the playoffs. Theoretically, if A = C in head-to-head, we would have to go to another tiebreaker, in this case performance vs. the rest of their division.

=== Playoff Rosters ===
Once playoffs rosters lock for the first time, no more player adds or drops are permitted during playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 25 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted or demoted to/from [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] or [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] until the following Monday. However, position players on the DL may be added to the 25-man roster after rosters lock if there is a space reserved for their potential activation. Any veteran player activated from the DL during a playoff series and not provided a spot on the 25-man roster may sit on a team's bench but not be used on an active roster during the series.

Positional players within the 25-man roster may be freely subbed in and out of slots during playoffs.

Each playoff team must start exactly five pitchers in each round of the playoffs: three starting pitchers, one relief pitcher and one flex (starter or reliever). Pitchers must remain active the entire week and cannot be benched. Teams may select pitchers on the DL as one of their five pitchers, but must also declare alternate, healthy pitchers in case such pitchers on the DL do not make a start in a game during that week. Teams may also, at their option, designate alternate pitchers for pitchers that are not on the DL.

=== Playoff Scoring ===

Pitching stats for the playoff week are as follows: ERA, WHIP, NQW/GS, K/9, HR/9, and STARR.

In the event of a playoff tie in points, such games will be decided by a cumulative measure for each stat category. Specifically: at the end of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each category. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of the season.

:Example
:Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the season, each team has 20 different aSB scores, for 280 data points total. Let's assume that out of the 280 observations of aSB, the mean is 2.5 and the standard deviation is 0.75.

:Now let's say that Team A has 4 aSB and Team B has 2. Team A would get +2 in tiebreaker scoring (because it's 2 Std Devs over the mean) while Team B would be given -0.67 (because it's 2/3 Std Devs. below the mean).

:We repeat this for all stats and see who has the higher total.

:Weights will be calculated annually at the conclusion of the regular season, prior to the conclusion of the first week's playoff matchups. As a proof of concept, we'll calculate the first-half weights at the all-star break to show what the tiebreakers would be if the season ended then (and to show that this is simpler in practice than it sounds in the abstract). We'll also create a plug-and-play google spreadsheet that lets you input the current score of your matchup and automatically calculate who holds the tiebreaker.

=== The McQueeney Cup ===
LDB will award the McQueeney Cup each season to the non-playoff team that wins the McQueeney Cup bracket, which will be played over three rounds parallel to the LDB playoffs, with Union and Federal ladders composed of each divisions' respective four non-playoff teams, seeded in order of regular season finish, with the last round including the Union and Federal finalists. The winner of the McQueeney Cup will receive a sandwich round pick between the first and second round of the amateur draft. In all other respects, McQueeney Cup games are decided as a regular playoff game. The winner of the McQueeney Cup may choose to either take the sandwich round pick or forfeit that pick in exchange for wiping his McQueeney penalties to $0, should he have any.

<references/>

Legacy Materials

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== Legacy Rules ==
<gallery perrow="3">
File:Lucid_Dream_Rules_2-2007.pdf|2007 Rules
File:Lucid_Dream_Baseball_2008_Rules_Final.pdf|2008 Rules
File:Lucid_Dream_Rules_2009_Final.pdf|2009 Rules
</gallery>

== LDB Rules Board Reporter ==

=== 2010 Decisions ===

==== In re aRBI, 2010 LDB 1 (Apr. 6, 2010) ====
QUESTION: The Wiki says that aRBI shall be RBI-2GIDP, but the Commissioner stated in an email that aRBI shall be RBI-GIDP. Which formula are we using?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that aRBI should be RBI-2GIDP, as stated in the Wiki. The rule as stated in the Wiki is entirely unambiguous, and therefore carries the day. We recognize that the Commissioner provided a different formula in an email, and that that formula is probably a better one. But the Wiki is the primary source for LDB's Rules, and where it can only be interpreted in one way, that interpretation should usually, and perhaps always, govern.

We should emphasize that, in this case, the rule written into the Wiki is workable and a relatively minor change from the other possible rule. Additionally, to the extent that anybody is harmed by the misunderstanding, that harm falls equally on people who relied on one source and people who relied on the other. Treating the rule stated in the Wiki as definitive thus does not create problems for the functioning of the League, and does not create or exacerbate any avoidable inequities among owners.

Of course, this does not stop the league from changing the rule mid-season, in accordance with the "In-season Rule Changes" provision of the Wiki. Such changes require unanimous consent.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

==== In re Cancelled MLB Games, 2010 LDB 2 (Apr. 12, 2010) ====
QUESTIONS: (1) Do stats from cancelled MLB games count in LDB? (2) If they do not count, what should be the mechanism for getting them tossed?

DECISION: On the first question, the Board unanimously concludes that cancelled MLB games will not count in LDB. On the second question, the Board unanimously concludes that the Commissioner should first look for a way to solve the problem functionally. If a functional fix is not possible, the league will rely on owners reporting cancelled games.

Regarding the first question, the Rules are completely silent on the issue. However, our past practice with CBS was to not count these games. And, as we understand, most if not all fantasy service providers do not count cancelled games. Given our past practice and that the fantasy baseball industry generally does not count these games, we are persuaded that they should not count.

On the second question, we think a technical fix is optimal. If that's not possible, then owners should keep their eye out for canceled games, and email the league when one occurs. Given that most of the league checks scores repeatedly throughout the day, a regular practice of emailing the league when a canceled game is spotted should suffice to catch all canceled games. Note that you should email the league, rather than just Geoff, so that everybody else knows that they don't need to report that game.

We considered proposing a prize for reported games, e.g., a .4M reward to the first team that spotted any given canceled game. Ultimately, we determined that this was unnecessary.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Pitchers' AAA Starts, 2010 LDB 3 (Jun. 6, 2010) ====
QUESTION: The Rules designate this as a "3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR" penalty, but with no mention of WPA, RE24, or NQW penalties. Does this imply we want no penalty on those categories?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that the rule was inadvertently incomplete as drafted, and should therefore be corrected. AAA starts will now consist of 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR, -3 NQW, -0.40 WPA, and -4.42 RE24.

Charging -3 NQW to a pitcher with the stat line stated in the Rules strikes us as uncontroversial. If a pitcher goes 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, and 2 HR, he incurs a game started, but no win or quality start. He almost certainly accumulates a loss as well, leaving him with -3 NQW under our scoring structure.

WPA and RE24 were more difficult to decide, since both are context specific. We thought it most appropriate to construct a fictional, realistic three inning sequence based on the stat line listed in the Rules and adopt the resulting WPA and RE24 values. This is the scenario we decided on:

* Top 1: AAA starter allows 1 run
* Bottom 1: Starter's team gets back a run
* Top 2: AAA starter allows no runs
* Bottom 2: Starter's team gets no runs
* Top 3: AAA starter allows 2 runs
* Bottom 3: Starter's team gets no runs
* Top 4: AAA starter allows 3 runs, pulled with bases empty, no outs

In this situation, the AAA starter incurs -0.40 WPA and -4.42 RE24.

As an aside, we apologize for not deciding this matter quicker, as dictated by the Rules.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Waivers, 2010 LDB 4 (Jun. 9, 2010) (Unpublished) ====
QUESTION: Where the rule reads, in part, "waivers always process through the opposite league first, then through the league with the original team's owner..." but the Commissioner later finds that MLB actually processes waivers in the opposite manner (original owner's league first, followed by the other league) should the rule be interpreted to mirror MLB?

DECISION: No. A plain reading of the rule states that waivers process through the other league first, and to read it as the opposite would require a rule change. The rules also clearly state that in-season rule changes require unanimous league consent. In order to change the rule to process through the original owner's league first, therefore, league consent must be gained. Under the Rules, in-season rules changes "are permissible so long as no team objects." Especially because the change that the Commissioner proposes would not injure any owner, the Rules allow him to propose the change to the league, allow a reasonable time for objection, and implement the change if nobody objects.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

==== In re Payouts, 2010 LDB 5 (Jul. 7, 2010) ====
QUESTION: We never really settled what we're going to do about payouts. Can you guys come up with an appropriate structure?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that we will use the same payout structure as last year, but with slight modifications that shift the prize pool in the league champion's favor, while also rewarding teams with second, third, and fourth place finishes. Teams will start being paid back their league fees after 102 wins instead of last year's 100. The remaining prize pool will be split 60-20-10-10% between the first through fourth place finishers, respectively, instead of last year's 65-35% split between the top two.

We find basis for our decision in several unsettled discussions about payout structure, which showed support for last year's payout structure, but with a desire to shift payout to the league champion and top four finishers, especially the league champion. We also found competing ideas for more radically altering the payout structure, but no consensus on them, and some of them were logically unworkable. That said, we think it prudent to keep the system we have, modify it for the changes we find widespread support for, and leave the more radical changes for the offseason.

Under last year's system, each team paid in $60 for the season. After a team won 100 points toward its season record, that team earned $1.00 back for each win thereafter, the break-even point being 160 points. Teams making the playoffs were guaranteed to be at least made whole on their $60 buy-in. Many teams, of course, fell short of 160 wins and did not get back all they paid in. The unpaid funds constituted the prize pool, which the champion and runner-up split 65-35%.[1]

Based on our calculations, we conclude that increasing the requisite points for beginning repayment to 102 and splitting the winnings amongst the top four teams 60-20-10-10% creates a much more desirable net winnings result.

In all other respects, the payout structure should remain the same.

Under this scheme, last year's standings would have resulted in the following net winnings distribution. Note that this is a somewhat extreme case, due to Starr winning so many in-season games above 162. On par, the disparity between the champion and runner-up would be even greater.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
!
! New Pool
! Old Pool
|-
| Brophy
| $105
| $99
|-
| Starr
| $50
| $68
|-
| Ian
| $22
| $7
|-
| Jack
| $22
| $7
|-
| Geoff
| $3
| $5
|-
| Dubner
| $1
| $3
|-
| Vijay
| $0
| $0
|-
| Ilan
| ($4)
| ($2)
|-
| Jay
| ($8)
| ($6)
|-
| Nat
| ($24)
| ($22)
|-
| Ray
| ($29)
| ($27)
|-
| Anton
| ($31)
| ($29)
|-
| Ryan
| ($39)
| ($37)
|-
| Sean
| ($67)
| ($65)
|}

Note: we do not warrant the absolute correctness of these numbers, as we worked backwards from the Commissioner's payouts last year. In fact, there is rounding error in them and/or an unaccounted dollar for the requirement that Vijay be made whole on making the playoffs with 159 wins. But they should present a reasonable picture of the result.

[1] The goal of this structure was twofold: (1) make teams out of contention think twice about selling off and (2) encourage teams to continue making day-to-day management decisions to maintain league competitiveness through the entire season.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Playoff Pitching Staffs, 2010 LDB 6 (Aug. 29, 2010) ====
QUESTION: May a team place a pitcher currently on the DL on its playoff roster? What about a pitcher in the real-world minor league systems?

ANSWER: Only if the pitcher is scheduled to come off the DL during that stage of the playoffs. The rule requires teams to "bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." Because all pitching stats are calculated as rate stats in the playoffs, and there is no innings requirement, a team could game the rule by using 1 superstar and 4 disabled pitchers. Accordingly, it would be best to interpret "bringing" pitchers to the round as selecting pitchers who are on major league rosters; that is, not disabled pitchers or players in the minor leagues.

Because an owner might legitimately want to use a disabled pitcher who is scheduled to come off the DL, they may do so, provided they announce their plan to the league and identify a backup pitcher on their roster who will pitch if the disabled pitcher does not appear in a game that week.

J. Dubner and M. Brophy

DISSENT: I respectfully disagree with the rest of the Board. While the decision we are rendering makes fine sense, I think we are overstepping our bounds. The Rules state that, "[s]hould any ambiguity of these Rules arise, such ambiguity is resolved by the Rules Interpretation Board (Board)." The Board has struggled numerous times this season with what is 'ambiguous' and what is not, mostly at my behest.[1] The rest of the Board takes a much broader view of the Board's power than I think the Rules allow. While I agree it may be desirable to give the Board broad powers, I do not think the Board has the power to render this decision.

Looking over some of our past decisions, most of them involve a question where there was no workable solution within the text of the Rules (see payouts, AAA starts, and cancelled games data). The one decision where we declined to intervene was the aRBI question, where we found a clear, workable standard with no ambiguity. This case is much closer to the aRBI question than to any of the others. Under the Rules, "[t]eams will bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." There is nothing ambiguous about this sentence; a team should be able to select any players for the playoff roster, with or without DL or minor league status -- just as it may with offensive players. In fact, I think a short roster would be perfectly acceptable strategy that brings higher risk and reward.

Brophy finds ambiguity in this sentence for other reasons: it doesn't speak of bench sizes or whether players may be subbed in and out. But these are extrinsic questions to the matter at hand, for which I think there is no legitimate ambiguity. Brophy also pointed out that, taken to the extreme, a manager could put all injured players on the playoff roster, which would result in divide-by-zero errors in scoring. First of all, no manager would ever do this. Second, even if one did, the Board would simply need to determine what to do with such score, since the Rules give no guidance.

Dubner made a very compelling case for why allowing guys on the DL or in minors would not effect league intent, and I agree with him. I even think that giving the Board the mission of effecting league intent and broad power to fashion new rules without a league vote is a good idea for next season. But I don't think we have the power to do so right now and that this should go to a league vote.

[1] The irony of 'ambiguous' being ambiguous does not escape me. Neither does the fact that I wrote that portion of the Rules.

R. Hughes

==== In re Tiebreakers, 2010 LDB 7 (Sept. 3, 2010) ====
NOTE: Geoff just sent us an emergency question. Brophy and Starr were disqualified because it affects their playoff match-ups. Anton stepped in as #3.

QUESTION: After the UZR update, it turns out that Nat, Josh and Geoff are tied at the end of week 20. We have no provision for a tie breaker in standings in the Rules. Geoff provided the contents of an email from August last year announcing tiebreakers for 2009.

DECISION: We unanimously conclude that the system used in 2009 should control. Standing will be determined based on the following criteria, in descending order:

# Standings points
# Head-to-head record (if three teams are tied and their head-to-head record results in another three-way tie, we'll ignore this and move on)
# Wins (exclude tie wins and forfeit wins from standings points)
# Tie wins
# InTRA-divisional record
# (god help us all) Overall roto performance
# Commissioner's coin flip (with witnesses)

R. Hughes, J. Dubner, and A. Johnson

=== 2011 Decisions ===

==== In re Multiple AAA Start Penalties 2011 LDB 1 (Mar. 31, 2011) ====

Financial Penalty Vagueness: The Rules Board unanimously declares that the following rule:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

Shall be interpreted to mean:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

In Addition, if it is within our power, we would like to submit the following rule change/addendum to the above rule for a league vote:

"If an LDB GM leaves any of the mandatory positions of his lineup empty on the first day of the MLB season, instead of facing the regular penalty of going 0-5 with 2 GIDPs for each empty roster spot, he will instead incur no stats for each empty spot. This rule will ONLY apply to Opening Day."

M. Starr, A. Johnson, and J. Zalman

=== 2012 Decisions ===

==== In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012) ====
QUESTION: Robinson Cano was erroneously marked as a K2 last year. He was actually a K3. Anton, who purchased him in the auction three years ago, has owned the player for all three years. He said that he had built his team around having Cano this year, but now he should be an RFA instead of a K3 (had he not been erroneously marked). Need a decision about what to do with Cano's status.

DECISION: We find ourselves in the odd situation of having to interpret rules that we no longer have, as they were lost on an old server. However, one of the pieces we have left of the rules is an amendment made during the previous offseason, the "Dubner Amendment," which clarifies the powers and mission of this board:

<blockquote>If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.</blockquote>

Having no rules to read from, we have to draw on memory to answer this question. We recall no contingency for dealing with the situation where incorrect data entry prejudices a team owner. As such, we need to craft a commonsense decision that fulfills the intent of the league.

We are guided in part by the dispute at the beginning of the 2011 season as to what extent Jay should be penalized after not having set his lineup over multiple days. Part of that discussion focussed on the level of responsibility an owner in this league must have to know his own team. The consensus was that everybody in this league must have a higher responsibility than they would in an average league. We think that is true in this case: an owner should know, without relying on entered data, whether a player has been on his roster for two or three seasons.

We are also guided by situations in the past where the league has had to fashion workarounds in data gaps, especially with regard to fielding data. Given that our league software is far from enterprise-level, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data inaccuracy. That is true in this case as well. One cannot expect every contract status to be correct, especially when it was (likely) entered by hand at some point.

As such, Cano's contract status last season was K3, and he will be an RFA this year. Additionally, Anton must pay the $0.7 million in savings that he received with Cano's more favorable K2 contract designation last season.

We are mindful that we must "avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league." We therefore do not opine here on the situation where an incorrect contract status requires an owner to pay back substantially more than $0.7 million in savings.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, and M. Starr

=== 2013 Decisions ===

==== In re Monetary Penalties for AAA Starts, 2013 LDB 1 (Mar. 9, 2013) ====
Our decision today comes in three parts with all agreeing on the first two issues and a split of opinion on the third.

'''QUESTION 1:''' Should monetary penalties for AAA starts be assessed before the luxury tax?

DECISION: As an initial matter, monetary penalties for AAA pitching starts are not included in our current version of the Rules. We lost our copy of the official Rules in 2011 following a server move, and the rewritten Rules applied the penalty only to invalid lineups. But the Board believes that the penalty was in the prior version of the Rules and that its omission was incidental. The penalty had been discussed at length in previous years and there was no reason to think that the league had decided to eliminate it. (Further discussion can be found in the July 2012 email thread entitled "[ldb] REMINDER: make sure your rosters are valid post-trading!") The Board has power to correct drafting errors in the attempt to restore the lost Rules, and will do so here. Accordingly, the penalty is $1 million for each week a team misses the innings requirement, commencing after the team misses innings for the second time in a season. It is imposed at the end of the season, per Geoff's explanation.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

'''QUESTION 2:''' Should monetary AAA start penalties be levied against teams' budgets the following year, in the event their carryover cash cannot pay the monetary penalties at the end of a season?

DECISION: When we instituted AAA penalties, the intent was to make them punitive and therefore coax owners into managing their teams until the end of the regular season, regardless of their places in the standings. If monetary penalties from AAA starts could not be levied against a following year's budget, a negligent owner could avert the monetary portion of the penalty by simply using his cash -- or not having any. In some sense, that would render the rule meaningless. Accordingly, the penalty should be applied against a team's future budget if he does not have the cash reserves to cover the monetary penalties at the end of a season.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

'''QUESTION 3:''' How should AAA start penalties affect new owners that inherit teams from previous owners?

DECISION: This season, we have two new team owners: Jeff Peterson and Jeff Jorve (the Jeffs). Prior to their entry to LDB, their candidacies were discussed at length, as was the process by which they would acquire teams. The teams they were inheriting were from Nat Jackson and Jack Murphy. Put simply, Nat had a great team, and Jack had a poor team. Rather than assigning each of the Jeffs one of the abandoned teams, we opted to let them draft players from each of the abandoned teams in order to bring balance to the situation.

Both Nat and Jack's cash situation at the end of the season was fairly meager. Nat had $0.4 million, and Jack had $2.6 million.

But Jack's team also carried along with it a lot of debt. Having incurred AAA starts a staggering 14 times, he incurred $14 million in penalties. The question today is what portion of that debt the Jeffs should shoulder into the 2013 season.

Before we answer that question, a more precise timeline of events that led us to this point is instructive:
#Jack incurred 14 AAA starts last season by missing the innings requirement in 14 of 20 weeks in the regular season.
#A $14 million monetary penalty was imposed on Jack's team at the end of the season for incurring those AAA starts (see above).
#Jack's balance sheet went into the red.
#Five months pass, and Jack then decided he was no longer going to be in the league.

Given that the penalty was imposed seven months ago, we are not deciding whether or not to impose a penalty on the new owners (as the dissent argues) -- we are deciding whether or not to erase the debt that Jack's team incurred at the end of last season.

We are guided in part by the fact that the Jeffs were allowed to dismantle Nat's premiere franchise. That opportunity brought a lot of benefit to their teams. Having assumed the benefits of dismantling Nat's team, we think the Jeffs also need to assume the burden of Jack's debt. The mere fact that Jack left the league does not extinguish the debt; the inheriting owners are acquiring the teams as-is.

We are also persuaded by the situation that purchasers of struggling MLB teams find themselves in. That breed of MLB owners knows the task ahead of them and the time it may take them to create a winning franchise. One of LDB's paramount features is is allowing owners to build a winning franchise over a number of seasons, much like MLB teams do. Coming into the league, the Jeffs also knew the task ahead of them in terms of building a franchise, much like purchasers of MLB teams do.

Accordingly, since the Jeffs split Nat's team, they should split the net debt of Nat and Jack's teams, a total of $5,485,202 each, leaving them with $172,514,799 to start the 2013 season.

We think this is an equitable result, given the benefit the Jeffs received from Nat's team and the expectations they had coming into this league. Additionally, shouldering this debt amounts to being docked only 3 percent of their yearly budget, which is not a significant disadvantage in 2013, and certainly not beyond.

We note that we do not opine on the situation where a new owner inherits a team with debt that significantly burdens him or her in the year s/he enters LDB.

The dissent makes much of an argument that distinguishes between different types of debt: those that benefited former owners and those that do not. We recognize that Starr's goal as Commissioner is to simplify many aspects of the league. Making this technical distinction goes against that effort, which we think is inappropriate. Additionally, such technical distinctions are not well-received by non-attorney members of LDB who are already suspicious of attorneys running the Rules Board. Indeed, the "Dubner Amendment," which modified provisions of the Rules governing this Board says:

:Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

A debt is a debt. Rather than distinguishing between different types of debts, we think it most prudent to hold them all to the same standard.

Lastly, the dissent argues that the new owners are at a "serious disadvantage" not having played in LDB before. Ian notes that he made his division series his first year, won the league his second year, and never considered himself at a "serious disadvantage" upon entering the league. Even if it is true that new owners are at a serious disadvantage, everyone in this league is held to a high standard for running their teams. (See: In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1.) We should not be in the business of qualifying that expectation. To that end, Ian also notes that prior to his first auction, the league allowed him to give Sean $7 million and Jason Bay (after his one great season) for a more expensive Manny Ramirez, before he had any idea how the game worked.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin

'''DISSENT:''' The innings-floor penalty is a penalty. It's designed to punish and discourage negligence. In most cases, including Jack's case, applying it to a new owner does not accomplish either of those goals: the new owner wasn't responsible for the negligence, so doesn't deserve the punishment, and couldn't control the negligence, so the disincentive has no effect. Equally importantly, the new teams gained absolutely nothing from Jack's negligence: he made no trades and acquired no useful assets, but rather left his team to rot. So applying the penalty punishes the new owners for someone else's misconduct, without them getting any benefit whatsoever from that conduct. That's not the purpose of the penalty, and it should not be applied here.

That said, in some cases, a new owner might benefit from the previous owner's negligence: if a previous owner blew up his team and traded away all his starters, then missed the innings floor, the new owner would be inheriting trade acquisitions and cash obtained through the kind of negligence we're trying to prevent. I find this unlikely, since an owner who's likely to leave the league probably would not bother building for the future. But to deal with that possibility, I would support leaving the decision of whether the penalty should apply to the Commissioner or RIB or league on a case-by-case basis, or support enforcing the penalty with a floor at the $178M base salary amount.

Ryan and Ian say that the penalty was "imposed at the end of the season," apparently based on our conclusion that it should be applied before the luxury tax is calculated. I'm not aware of anything in the Rules requiring that interpretation. The penalty is meant to be assessed against next year's salary, so when it is formally "imposed" is an artificial technicality that shouldn't be the basis for our decision.

Ryan and Ian conclude that it's fair to apply the penalty to new owners because (a) the penalty is a debt of the previous owner, and new owners should take on all benefits and burdens of the existing team, and (b) MLB owners take over struggling franchises and have to put in the work it takes to revive them. I don't find either of these arguments convincing. As to the first point, describing the penalty as a "debt" and ending the analysis there ignores the reason the charge was imposed. We pass on debts to future owners because otherwise a creditor will get screwed or the new owner will inherit a benefit without the corresponding burden -- but here, nobody would be harmed by the failure to take away money from the new owners, and the new owners aren't inheriting anything obtained through incurring the debt. The benefit of splitting up Nat's team is simply irrelevant to this question, and in any event is eliminated by having to divide that one good team between two new teams, supplemented by picks from Jack's nearly useless roster. As to the second point, new LDB owners come in at a serious disadvantage no matter what team they inherit; they must learn about high school juniors and incredibly complex rules, while facing owners with nearly a decade's experience. This is not remotely comparable to new ownership of a struggling MLB franchise, who come into control with an experienced staff in place and can hire MLB front-office veterans. We expect a lot of our new owners, of course, but we shouldn't be putting them at an added disadvantage without a good reason.

J. Dubner

=== 2015 Decisions ===

==== In re HTH Keepability 2015 LDB 1 (Mar. 3, 2015) ====
According to Hughes, the rule is ambiguous as to whether:
1) the keeping team must be the team to have picked up the MS player, and
2) whether such player must have accrued statistics for the keeping team or any team.

First, let's take a look at the HTH rule itself --

:Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. '''The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics for the team on the active roster.''' The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Hughes argues the following:

:"...'Mid-season' is an adjective that modifies the object "free agents." Under the definition above, "free agents" with mid-season contract status are the class of players who can be nominated as HTH. It doesn't speak to the team that picked them up in the first place at all. So any MS should be able to be kept regardless of what team picked them up."

In regards to the bolded sentence above, Hughes also notes:

:"This proviso was added for the purpose of keeping teams from picking up injured players who got cut (recall: injured Brandon Webb being shrewdly picked up by Brophy). It also doesn't say which team the player has to accrue stats for, so long as they accrue stats for some team."

The language on the LDB Rules Wiki does indeed carry some ambiguity, but since LDB had been operating the last couple of seasons on the notion that only the team that picked up a player on waivers could declare them an HTH, we began to dig through the Google Groups archives for the origin of the rule.

Sure enough, we discovered the following from 2012: (link)

:Geoff Harcourt:

::My proposal for an up-or-down vote is:

::a) In order to be hometown hero eligible, a player must satisfy the following criteria:
::1. Ended the season on a mid-season free agent (MS) contract. This means K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible. The player must clear waivers if they were on one of these contracts
::2. Accumulated some official MLB stats while on the active roster for the team during their season-ending team membership. This means the player was not on the bench while playing in an MLB game and pitched pitched at least one pitch while assigned as SP or RP OR was pitched to while in a non-pitcher, non-bench spot.

::'''These active stats must be accumulated during the season-ending team membership. So if you picked someone up in April and played them, but then dropped them, and someone else picked them up, then dropped them for a season-ending injury, and you picked them back up, that player would not be eligible if they did not accumulate stats for you on the second stint.'''

::b) Hometown heroes will be paid according to the following salary schedule:
::1. Relief Pitchers - 2 million
::2. Catchers - 4 million
::3. All other players - 6 million

::To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever. To qualify as a catcher, the number of games played at catcher must be more than 50% of their total games played.

::These provisions will apply to mid-season free agents picked up during 2012 and beyond.

Omitting the "HTH Catchers for $4M", the rule above was voted into LDB law on 3/13/2012.

By a vote of 3-0, the Rules Committee has decided that '''1) the team who picked up the player and still retains him at the end of the season may declare the player an HTH''', and '''2) said player must have accrued positive LDB statistics during its current stint with that team, as it had been voted on in 2012.''' By that logic, this eliminates any loophole of trading an MS player to another team to be kept in the post-season, as the player cannot accumulate any stats for the new team in the post-season.

J. Breisblatt, A. Johnson, and J. Peterson

==== In re HTH Keepability Follow-up 2015 LDB 2 (Mar. 4, 2015) ====

Follow-up question that isn't addressed above: what if a player is picked up as a free agent by team A, dropped by team A, is picked up off three-day waivers by team B (as opposed to being picked up as a free agent), and then accrues positive stats? Dubner has deGrom in that situation, and I have Phil Hughes in that situation. Are they HTH-able, or can we only HTH people who were picked up as free agents?

If it's an MS on waivers, that's perfectly eligible for HTH status. --J. Peterson

Yes, Team B can HTH that MS player. --A. Johnson

Legacy Materials

2016-02-15T07:05:14Z

198.8.80.86:

== Legacy Rules ==
<gallery perrow="3">
File:Lucid_Dream_Rules_2-2007.pdf|2007 Rules
File:Lucid_Dream_Baseball_2008_Rules_Final.pdf|2008 Rules
File:Lucid_Dream_Rules_2009_Final.pdf|2009 Rules
</gallery>

== LDB Rules Board Reporter ==

=== LDB Rules Board Decision Citation Format ===
Decisions by the Rules Board should be cited as: <title>, <season year> LDB <decision number of the season> (<month> <day>, <year>).

=== 2010 Decisions ===

==== In re aRBI, 2010 LDB 1 (Apr. 6, 2010) ====
QUESTION: The Wiki says that aRBI shall be RBI-2GIDP, but the Commissioner stated in an email that aRBI shall be RBI-GIDP. Which formula are we using?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that aRBI should be RBI-2GIDP, as stated in the Wiki. The rule as stated in the Wiki is entirely unambiguous, and therefore carries the day. We recognize that the Commissioner provided a different formula in an email, and that that formula is probably a better one. But the Wiki is the primary source for LDB's Rules, and where it can only be interpreted in one way, that interpretation should usually, and perhaps always, govern.

We should emphasize that, in this case, the rule written into the Wiki is workable and a relatively minor change from the other possible rule. Additionally, to the extent that anybody is harmed by the misunderstanding, that harm falls equally on people who relied on one source and people who relied on the other. Treating the rule stated in the Wiki as definitive thus does not create problems for the functioning of the League, and does not create or exacerbate any avoidable inequities among owners.

Of course, this does not stop the league from changing the rule mid-season, in accordance with the "In-season Rule Changes" provision of the Wiki. Such changes require unanimous consent.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

==== In re Cancelled MLB Games, 2010 LDB 2 (Apr. 12, 2010) ====
QUESTIONS: (1) Do stats from cancelled MLB games count in LDB? (2) If they do not count, what should be the mechanism for getting them tossed?

DECISION: On the first question, the Board unanimously concludes that cancelled MLB games will not count in LDB. On the second question, the Board unanimously concludes that the Commissioner should first look for a way to solve the problem functionally. If a functional fix is not possible, the league will rely on owners reporting cancelled games.

Regarding the first question, the Rules are completely silent on the issue. However, our past practice with CBS was to not count these games. And, as we understand, most if not all fantasy service providers do not count cancelled games. Given our past practice and that the fantasy baseball industry generally does not count these games, we are persuaded that they should not count.

On the second question, we think a technical fix is optimal. If that's not possible, then owners should keep their eye out for canceled games, and email the league when one occurs. Given that most of the league checks scores repeatedly throughout the day, a regular practice of emailing the league when a canceled game is spotted should suffice to catch all canceled games. Note that you should email the league, rather than just Geoff, so that everybody else knows that they don't need to report that game.

We considered proposing a prize for reported games, e.g., a .4M reward to the first team that spotted any given canceled game. Ultimately, we determined that this was unnecessary.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Pitchers' AAA Starts, 2010 LDB 3 (Jun. 6, 2010) ====
QUESTION: The Rules designate this as a "3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR" penalty, but with no mention of WPA, RE24, or NQW penalties. Does this imply we want no penalty on those categories?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that the rule was inadvertently incomplete as drafted, and should therefore be corrected. AAA starts will now consist of 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 2 HR, -3 NQW, -0.40 WPA, and -4.42 RE24.

Charging -3 NQW to a pitcher with the stat line stated in the Rules strikes us as uncontroversial. If a pitcher goes 3 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, and 2 HR, he incurs a game started, but no win or quality start. He almost certainly accumulates a loss as well, leaving him with -3 NQW under our scoring structure.

WPA and RE24 were more difficult to decide, since both are context specific. We thought it most appropriate to construct a fictional, realistic three inning sequence based on the stat line listed in the Rules and adopt the resulting WPA and RE24 values. This is the scenario we decided on:

* Top 1: AAA starter allows 1 run
* Bottom 1: Starter's team gets back a run
* Top 2: AAA starter allows no runs
* Bottom 2: Starter's team gets no runs
* Top 3: AAA starter allows 2 runs
* Bottom 3: Starter's team gets no runs
* Top 4: AAA starter allows 3 runs, pulled with bases empty, no outs

In this situation, the AAA starter incurs -0.40 WPA and -4.42 RE24.

As an aside, we apologize for not deciding this matter quicker, as dictated by the Rules.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Waivers, 2010 LDB 4 (Jun. 9, 2010) (Unpublished) ====
QUESTION: Where the rule reads, in part, "waivers always process through the opposite league first, then through the league with the original team's owner..." but the Commissioner later finds that MLB actually processes waivers in the opposite manner (original owner's league first, followed by the other league) should the rule be interpreted to mirror MLB?

DECISION: No. A plain reading of the rule states that waivers process through the other league first, and to read it as the opposite would require a rule change. The rules also clearly state that in-season rule changes require unanimous league consent. In order to change the rule to process through the original owner's league first, therefore, league consent must be gained. Under the Rules, in-season rules changes "are permissible so long as no team objects." Especially because the change that the Commissioner proposes would not injure any owner, the Rules allow him to propose the change to the league, allow a reasonable time for objection, and implement the change if nobody objects.

J. Dubner, M. Brophy, and R. Hughes

==== In re Payouts, 2010 LDB 5 (Jul. 7, 2010) ====
QUESTION: We never really settled what we're going to do about payouts. Can you guys come up with an appropriate structure?

DECISION: The Board unanimously concludes that we will use the same payout structure as last year, but with slight modifications that shift the prize pool in the league champion's favor, while also rewarding teams with second, third, and fourth place finishes. Teams will start being paid back their league fees after 102 wins instead of last year's 100. The remaining prize pool will be split 60-20-10-10% between the first through fourth place finishers, respectively, instead of last year's 65-35% split between the top two.

We find basis for our decision in several unsettled discussions about payout structure, which showed support for last year's payout structure, but with a desire to shift payout to the league champion and top four finishers, especially the league champion. We also found competing ideas for more radically altering the payout structure, but no consensus on them, and some of them were logically unworkable. That said, we think it prudent to keep the system we have, modify it for the changes we find widespread support for, and leave the more radical changes for the offseason.

Under last year's system, each team paid in $60 for the season. After a team won 100 points toward its season record, that team earned $1.00 back for each win thereafter, the break-even point being 160 points. Teams making the playoffs were guaranteed to be at least made whole on their $60 buy-in. Many teams, of course, fell short of 160 wins and did not get back all they paid in. The unpaid funds constituted the prize pool, which the champion and runner-up split 65-35%.[1]

Based on our calculations, we conclude that increasing the requisite points for beginning repayment to 102 and splitting the winnings amongst the top four teams 60-20-10-10% creates a much more desirable net winnings result.

In all other respects, the payout structure should remain the same.

Under this scheme, last year's standings would have resulted in the following net winnings distribution. Note that this is a somewhat extreme case, due to Starr winning so many in-season games above 162. On par, the disparity between the champion and runner-up would be even greater.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
!
! New Pool
! Old Pool
|-
| Brophy
| $105
| $99
|-
| Starr
| $50
| $68
|-
| Ian
| $22
| $7
|-
| Jack
| $22
| $7
|-
| Geoff
| $3
| $5
|-
| Dubner
| $1
| $3
|-
| Vijay
| $0
| $0
|-
| Ilan
| ($4)
| ($2)
|-
| Jay
| ($8)
| ($6)
|-
| Nat
| ($24)
| ($22)
|-
| Ray
| ($29)
| ($27)
|-
| Anton
| ($31)
| ($29)
|-
| Ryan
| ($39)
| ($37)
|-
| Sean
| ($67)
| ($65)
|}

Note: we do not warrant the absolute correctness of these numbers, as we worked backwards from the Commissioner's payouts last year. In fact, there is rounding error in them and/or an unaccounted dollar for the requirement that Vijay be made whole on making the playoffs with 159 wins. But they should present a reasonable picture of the result.

[1] The goal of this structure was twofold: (1) make teams out of contention think twice about selling off and (2) encourage teams to continue making day-to-day management decisions to maintain league competitiveness through the entire season.

R. Hughes, M. Brophy, and J. Dubner

==== In re Playoff Pitching Staffs, 2010 LDB 6 (Aug. 29, 2010) ====
QUESTION: May a team place a pitcher currently on the DL on its playoff roster? What about a pitcher in the real-world minor league systems?

ANSWER: Only if the pitcher is scheduled to come off the DL during that stage of the playoffs. The rule requires teams to "bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." Because all pitching stats are calculated as rate stats in the playoffs, and there is no innings requirement, a team could game the rule by using 1 superstar and 4 disabled pitchers. Accordingly, it would be best to interpret "bringing" pitchers to the round as selecting pitchers who are on major league rosters; that is, not disabled pitchers or players in the minor leagues.

Because an owner might legitimately want to use a disabled pitcher who is scheduled to come off the DL, they may do so, provided they announce their plan to the league and identify a backup pitcher on their roster who will pitch if the disabled pitcher does not appear in a game that week.

J. Dubner and M. Brophy

DISSENT: I respectfully disagree with the rest of the Board. While the decision we are rendering makes fine sense, I think we are overstepping our bounds. The Rules state that, "[s]hould any ambiguity of these Rules arise, such ambiguity is resolved by the Rules Interpretation Board (Board)." The Board has struggled numerous times this season with what is 'ambiguous' and what is not, mostly at my behest.[1] The rest of the Board takes a much broader view of the Board's power than I think the Rules allow. While I agree it may be desirable to give the Board broad powers, I do not think the Board has the power to render this decision.

Looking over some of our past decisions, most of them involve a question where there was no workable solution within the text of the Rules (see payouts, AAA starts, and cancelled games data). The one decision where we declined to intervene was the aRBI question, where we found a clear, workable standard with no ambiguity. This case is much closer to the aRBI question than to any of the others. Under the Rules, "[t]eams will bring three starters and two relievers to each playoff round." There is nothing ambiguous about this sentence; a team should be able to select any players for the playoff roster, with or without DL or minor league status -- just as it may with offensive players. In fact, I think a short roster would be perfectly acceptable strategy that brings higher risk and reward.

Brophy finds ambiguity in this sentence for other reasons: it doesn't speak of bench sizes or whether players may be subbed in and out. But these are extrinsic questions to the matter at hand, for which I think there is no legitimate ambiguity. Brophy also pointed out that, taken to the extreme, a manager could put all injured players on the playoff roster, which would result in divide-by-zero errors in scoring. First of all, no manager would ever do this. Second, even if one did, the Board would simply need to determine what to do with such score, since the Rules give no guidance.

Dubner made a very compelling case for why allowing guys on the DL or in minors would not effect league intent, and I agree with him. I even think that giving the Board the mission of effecting league intent and broad power to fashion new rules without a league vote is a good idea for next season. But I don't think we have the power to do so right now and that this should go to a league vote.

[1] The irony of 'ambiguous' being ambiguous does not escape me. Neither does the fact that I wrote that portion of the Rules.

R. Hughes

==== In re Tiebreakers, 2010 LDB 7 (Sept. 3, 2010) ====
NOTE: Geoff just sent us an emergency question. Brophy and Starr were disqualified because it affects their playoff match-ups. Anton stepped in as #3.

QUESTION: After the UZR update, it turns out that Nat, Josh and Geoff are tied at the end of week 20. We have no provision for a tie breaker in standings in the Rules. Geoff provided the contents of an email from August last year announcing tiebreakers for 2009.

DECISION: We unanimously conclude that the system used in 2009 should control. Standing will be determined based on the following criteria, in descending order:

# Standings points
# Head-to-head record (if three teams are tied and their head-to-head record results in another three-way tie, we'll ignore this and move on)
# Wins (exclude tie wins and forfeit wins from standings points)
# Tie wins
# InTRA-divisional record
# (god help us all) Overall roto performance
# Commissioner's coin flip (with witnesses)

R. Hughes, J. Dubner, and A. Johnson

=== 2011 Decisions ===

==== In re Multiple AAA Start Penalties 2011 LDB 1 (Mar. 31, 2011) ====

Financial Penalty Vagueness: The Rules Board unanimously declares that the following rule:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

Shall be interpreted to mean:

For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

In Addition, if it is within our power, we would like to submit the following rule change/addendum to the above rule for a league vote:

"If an LDB GM leaves any of the mandatory positions of his lineup empty on the first day of the MLB season, instead of facing the regular penalty of going 0-5 with 2 GIDPs for each empty roster spot, he will instead incur no stats for each empty spot. This rule will ONLY apply to Opening Day."

M. Starr, A. Johnson, and J. Zalman

=== 2012 Decisions ===

==== In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012) ====
QUESTION: Robinson Cano was erroneously marked as a K2 last year. He was actually a K3. Anton, who purchased him in the auction three years ago, has owned the player for all three years. He said that he had built his team around having Cano this year, but now he should be an RFA instead of a K3 (had he not been erroneously marked). Need a decision about what to do with Cano's status.

DECISION: We find ourselves in the odd situation of having to interpret rules that we no longer have, as they were lost on an old server. However, one of the pieces we have left of the rules is an amendment made during the previous offseason, the "Dubner Amendment," which clarifies the powers and mission of this board:

<blockquote>If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.</blockquote>

Having no rules to read from, we have to draw on memory to answer this question. We recall no contingency for dealing with the situation where incorrect data entry prejudices a team owner. As such, we need to craft a commonsense decision that fulfills the intent of the league.

We are guided in part by the dispute at the beginning of the 2011 season as to what extent Jay should be penalized after not having set his lineup over multiple days. Part of that discussion focussed on the level of responsibility an owner in this league must have to know his own team. The consensus was that everybody in this league must have a higher responsibility than they would in an average league. We think that is true in this case: an owner should know, without relying on entered data, whether a player has been on his roster for two or three seasons.

We are also guided by situations in the past where the league has had to fashion workarounds in data gaps, especially with regard to fielding data. Given that our league software is far from enterprise-level, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data inaccuracy. That is true in this case as well. One cannot expect every contract status to be correct, especially when it was (likely) entered by hand at some point.

As such, Cano's contract status last season was K3, and he will be an RFA this year. Additionally, Anton must pay the $0.7 million in savings that he received with Cano's more favorable K2 contract designation last season.

We are mindful that we must "avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league." We therefore do not opine here on the situation where an incorrect contract status requires an owner to pay back substantially more than $0.7 million in savings.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, and M. Starr

=== 2013 Decisions ===

==== In re Monetary Penalties for AAA Starts, 2013 LDB 1 (Mar. 9, 2013) ====
Our decision today comes in three parts with all agreeing on the first two issues and a split of opinion on the third.

'''QUESTION 1:''' Should monetary penalties for AAA starts be assessed before the luxury tax?

DECISION: As an initial matter, monetary penalties for AAA pitching starts are not included in our current version of the Rules. We lost our copy of the official Rules in 2011 following a server move, and the rewritten Rules applied the penalty only to invalid lineups. But the Board believes that the penalty was in the prior version of the Rules and that its omission was incidental. The penalty had been discussed at length in previous years and there was no reason to think that the league had decided to eliminate it. (Further discussion can be found in the July 2012 email thread entitled "[ldb] REMINDER: make sure your rosters are valid post-trading!") The Board has power to correct drafting errors in the attempt to restore the lost Rules, and will do so here. Accordingly, the penalty is $1 million for each week a team misses the innings requirement, commencing after the team misses innings for the second time in a season. It is imposed at the end of the season, per Geoff's explanation.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

'''QUESTION 2:''' Should monetary AAA start penalties be levied against teams' budgets the following year, in the event their carryover cash cannot pay the monetary penalties at the end of a season?

DECISION: When we instituted AAA penalties, the intent was to make them punitive and therefore coax owners into managing their teams until the end of the regular season, regardless of their places in the standings. If monetary penalties from AAA starts could not be levied against a following year's budget, a negligent owner could avert the monetary portion of the penalty by simply using his cash -- or not having any. In some sense, that would render the rule meaningless. Accordingly, the penalty should be applied against a team's future budget if he does not have the cash reserves to cover the monetary penalties at the end of a season.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin, J. Dubner

'''QUESTION 3:''' How should AAA start penalties affect new owners that inherit teams from previous owners?

DECISION: This season, we have two new team owners: Jeff Peterson and Jeff Jorve (the Jeffs). Prior to their entry to LDB, their candidacies were discussed at length, as was the process by which they would acquire teams. The teams they were inheriting were from Nat Jackson and Jack Murphy. Put simply, Nat had a great team, and Jack had a poor team. Rather than assigning each of the Jeffs one of the abandoned teams, we opted to let them draft players from each of the abandoned teams in order to bring balance to the situation.

Both Nat and Jack's cash situation at the end of the season was fairly meager. Nat had $0.4 million, and Jack had $2.6 million.

But Jack's team also carried along with it a lot of debt. Having incurred AAA starts a staggering 14 times, he incurred $14 million in penalties. The question today is what portion of that debt the Jeffs should shoulder into the 2013 season.

Before we answer that question, a more precise timeline of events that led us to this point is instructive:
#Jack incurred 14 AAA starts last season by missing the innings requirement in 14 of 20 weeks in the regular season.
#A $14 million monetary penalty was imposed on Jack's team at the end of the season for incurring those AAA starts (see above).
#Jack's balance sheet went into the red.
#Five months pass, and Jack then decided he was no longer going to be in the league.

Given that the penalty was imposed seven months ago, we are not deciding whether or not to impose a penalty on the new owners (as the dissent argues) -- we are deciding whether or not to erase the debt that Jack's team incurred at the end of last season.

We are guided in part by the fact that the Jeffs were allowed to dismantle Nat's premiere franchise. That opportunity brought a lot of benefit to their teams. Having assumed the benefits of dismantling Nat's team, we think the Jeffs also need to assume the burden of Jack's debt. The mere fact that Jack left the league does not extinguish the debt; the inheriting owners are acquiring the teams as-is.

We are also persuaded by the situation that purchasers of struggling MLB teams find themselves in. That breed of MLB owners knows the task ahead of them and the time it may take them to create a winning franchise. One of LDB's paramount features is is allowing owners to build a winning franchise over a number of seasons, much like MLB teams do. Coming into the league, the Jeffs also knew the task ahead of them in terms of building a franchise, much like purchasers of MLB teams do.

Accordingly, since the Jeffs split Nat's team, they should split the net debt of Nat and Jack's teams, a total of $5,485,202 each, leaving them with $172,514,799 to start the 2013 season.

We think this is an equitable result, given the benefit the Jeffs received from Nat's team and the expectations they had coming into this league. Additionally, shouldering this debt amounts to being docked only 3 percent of their yearly budget, which is not a significant disadvantage in 2013, and certainly not beyond.

We note that we do not opine on the situation where a new owner inherits a team with debt that significantly burdens him or her in the year s/he enters LDB.

The dissent makes much of an argument that distinguishes between different types of debt: those that benefited former owners and those that do not. We recognize that Starr's goal as Commissioner is to simplify many aspects of the league. Making this technical distinction goes against that effort, which we think is inappropriate. Additionally, such technical distinctions are not well-received by non-attorney members of LDB who are already suspicious of attorneys running the Rules Board. Indeed, the "Dubner Amendment," which modified provisions of the Rules governing this Board says:

:Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

A debt is a debt. Rather than distinguishing between different types of debts, we think it most prudent to hold them all to the same standard.

Lastly, the dissent argues that the new owners are at a "serious disadvantage" not having played in LDB before. Ian notes that he made his division series his first year, won the league his second year, and never considered himself at a "serious disadvantage" upon entering the league. Even if it is true that new owners are at a serious disadvantage, everyone in this league is held to a high standard for running their teams. (See: In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1.) We should not be in the business of qualifying that expectation. To that end, Ian also notes that prior to his first auction, the league allowed him to give Sean $7 million and Jason Bay (after his one great season) for a more expensive Manny Ramirez, before he had any idea how the game worked.

R. Hughes, I. Marcus Amelkin

'''DISSENT:''' The innings-floor penalty is a penalty. It's designed to punish and discourage negligence. In most cases, including Jack's case, applying it to a new owner does not accomplish either of those goals: the new owner wasn't responsible for the negligence, so doesn't deserve the punishment, and couldn't control the negligence, so the disincentive has no effect. Equally importantly, the new teams gained absolutely nothing from Jack's negligence: he made no trades and acquired no useful assets, but rather left his team to rot. So applying the penalty punishes the new owners for someone else's misconduct, without them getting any benefit whatsoever from that conduct. That's not the purpose of the penalty, and it should not be applied here.

That said, in some cases, a new owner might benefit from the previous owner's negligence: if a previous owner blew up his team and traded away all his starters, then missed the innings floor, the new owner would be inheriting trade acquisitions and cash obtained through the kind of negligence we're trying to prevent. I find this unlikely, since an owner who's likely to leave the league probably would not bother building for the future. But to deal with that possibility, I would support leaving the decision of whether the penalty should apply to the Commissioner or RIB or league on a case-by-case basis, or support enforcing the penalty with a floor at the $178M base salary amount.

Ryan and Ian say that the penalty was "imposed at the end of the season," apparently based on our conclusion that it should be applied before the luxury tax is calculated. I'm not aware of anything in the Rules requiring that interpretation. The penalty is meant to be assessed against next year's salary, so when it is formally "imposed" is an artificial technicality that shouldn't be the basis for our decision.

Ryan and Ian conclude that it's fair to apply the penalty to new owners because (a) the penalty is a debt of the previous owner, and new owners should take on all benefits and burdens of the existing team, and (b) MLB owners take over struggling franchises and have to put in the work it takes to revive them. I don't find either of these arguments convincing. As to the first point, describing the penalty as a "debt" and ending the analysis there ignores the reason the charge was imposed. We pass on debts to future owners because otherwise a creditor will get screwed or the new owner will inherit a benefit without the corresponding burden -- but here, nobody would be harmed by the failure to take away money from the new owners, and the new owners aren't inheriting anything obtained through incurring the debt. The benefit of splitting up Nat's team is simply irrelevant to this question, and in any event is eliminated by having to divide that one good team between two new teams, supplemented by picks from Jack's nearly useless roster. As to the second point, new LDB owners come in at a serious disadvantage no matter what team they inherit; they must learn about high school juniors and incredibly complex rules, while facing owners with nearly a decade's experience. This is not remotely comparable to new ownership of a struggling MLB franchise, who come into control with an experienced staff in place and can hire MLB front-office veterans. We expect a lot of our new owners, of course, but we shouldn't be putting them at an added disadvantage without a good reason.

J. Dubner

=== 2015 Decisions ===

==== In re HTH Keepability 2015 LDB 1 (Mar. 3, 2015) ====
According to Hughes, the rule is ambiguous as to whether:
1) the keeping team must be the team to have picked up the MS player, and
2) whether such player must have accrued statistics for the keeping team or any team.

First, let's take a look at the HTH rule itself --

:Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. '''The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics for the team on the active roster.''' The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Hughes argues the following:

:"...'Mid-season' is an adjective that modifies the object "free agents." Under the definition above, "free agents" with mid-season contract status are the class of players who can be nominated as HTH. It doesn't speak to the team that picked them up in the first place at all. So any MS should be able to be kept regardless of what team picked them up."

In regards to the bolded sentence above, Hughes also notes:

:"This proviso was added for the purpose of keeping teams from picking up injured players who got cut (recall: injured Brandon Webb being shrewdly picked up by Brophy). It also doesn't say which team the player has to accrue stats for, so long as they accrue stats for some team."

The language on the LDB Rules Wiki does indeed carry some ambiguity, but since LDB had been operating the last couple of seasons on the notion that only the team that picked up a player on waivers could declare them an HTH, we began to dig through the Google Groups archives for the origin of the rule.

Sure enough, we discovered the following from 2012: (link)

:Geoff Harcourt:

::My proposal for an up-or-down vote is:

::a) In order to be hometown hero eligible, a player must satisfy the following criteria:
::1. Ended the season on a mid-season free agent (MS) contract. This means K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible. The player must clear waivers if they were on one of these contracts
::2. Accumulated some official MLB stats while on the active roster for the team during their season-ending team membership. This means the player was not on the bench while playing in an MLB game and pitched pitched at least one pitch while assigned as SP or RP OR was pitched to while in a non-pitcher, non-bench spot.

::'''These active stats must be accumulated during the season-ending team membership. So if you picked someone up in April and played them, but then dropped them, and someone else picked them up, then dropped them for a season-ending injury, and you picked them back up, that player would not be eligible if they did not accumulate stats for you on the second stint.'''

::b) Hometown heroes will be paid according to the following salary schedule:
::1. Relief Pitchers - 2 million
::2. Catchers - 4 million
::3. All other players - 6 million

::To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever. To qualify as a catcher, the number of games played at catcher must be more than 50% of their total games played.

::These provisions will apply to mid-season free agents picked up during 2012 and beyond.

Omitting the "HTH Catchers for $4M", the rule above was voted into LDB law on 3/13/2012.

By a vote of 3-0, the Rules Committee has decided that '''1) the team who picked up the player and still retains him at the end of the season may declare the player an HTH''', and '''2) said player must have accrued positive LDB statistics during its current stint with that team, as it had been voted on in 2012.''' By that logic, this eliminates any loophole of trading an MS player to another team to be kept in the post-season, as the player cannot accumulate any stats for the new team in the post-season.

J. Breisblatt, A. Johnson, and J. Peterson

==== In re HTH Keepability Follow-up 2015 LDB 2 (Mar. 4, 2015) ====

Follow-up question that isn't addressed above: what if a player is picked up as a free agent by team A, dropped by team A, is picked up off three-day waivers by team B (as opposed to being picked up as a free agent), and then accrues positive stats? Dubner has deGrom in that situation, and I have Phil Hughes in that situation. Are they HTH-able, or can we only HTH people who were picked up as free agents?

If it's an MS on waivers, that's perfectly eligible for HTH status. --J. Peterson

Yes, Team B can HTH that MS player. --A. Johnson

The Game

2016-02-15T06:47:55Z

198.8.80.86: /* The McQueeney Cup */

LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. During the regular season, each team will play another team for one week at a time (Monday to Sunday)<ref>With the exception of the first and eleventh weeks, which may extend beyond seven days.</ref> for a total of 20 weeks, with each statistical category representing one game, meaning 14 games are in play each week. After the regular season, top-performing teams advance to the playoffs.

== Schedule ==
Scheduling will be announced by the Commissioner before the [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]] each year. Schedules are unbalanced, meaning that teams will play teams within their league more often than teams outside their league. Each team will play their divisional opponents twice each, and each team from the other division once. The only exception to this will be the team’s designated "natural rival." Each team will be paired randomly with one team from the other division, and will play that team twice instead of once.

== Scoring ==
Lucid Dream Baseball scores the ten active batters and up to eleven active pitchers each day on the following statistics:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="500"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Scoring
|-
! width="200" | Batters
! Pitchers
|-
| On-Base Percentage (OBP)
| Net Quality Wins: NQW = 4QS + W - L - 2GS
|-
| On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage: OPS = OBP + SLG
| Adjusted WHIP: aWHIP = (H + BB + HBP)/INN
|-
| Runs Scored (R)
| STARR: (RIP+3*SV+3*HLD-8*BS-8*RL)/4
|-
| Adjusted Runs Batted In: aRBI = RBI - GIDP
| Home Runs Allowed (HRA)
|-
| Home Runs (HR)
| Pitcher Strikeouts (K)
|-
| Adjusted Stolen Bases: ASB = SB - CS/2
| Earned Run Average (ERA)
|}

Just as in baseball, there can be no ties. If a statistical category ends in a tie at the conclusion of the week, the home team will win all such categories.

===Rain Delay Relief===
In the event of a rain delay, if the starting pitcher of such a game has ERA of 4.50 or less in the innings he has pitched in that game, he will receive a 0 in NQW instead of a -2.

The rule will apply in the following situations:

*If a starting pitcher, who has pitched less than 6 innings in a game, is removed from a game immediately following a weather delay; or
*If a starting pitcher does not pitch a full 6 innings because a game is deemed officially completed before the completion of the 6th inning due to a rainout or other weather-related game shortening.

This rule will be self-enforced. Teams will have to identify situations where this has occurred on their teams and notify the Commissioner within seven days of the occurrence. The Commissioner will then make the necessary scoring changes.

== Roster Requirements ==
Each week, each team must meet the league minimum innings pitched requirement (IP) of 44 innings per week. Additionally, teams must have an eligible player in each positional roster spot (but not designated hitters) each day. If a team fails to meet these minimum requirements, the following penalties are applied:

=== Batting and Fielding Penalties ===
For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

=== Pitching Penalties ===
If a team fails to reach the required 44 innings pitched in a given week, that team will automatically lose the following categories: NQS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and STARR. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,<ref>Fuck-ups</ref>. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be no financial penalty. After the first instance of missed innings, each additional week a team misses innings will cost that team's owner $1 million, to be levied immediately upon the completion of the LDB Championship Series for that season.

== McQueeney Performance Penalties <ref>Known as "McQueeneys"</ref>==
The McQueeney Performance Penalty deducts LDB cash from a team's subsequent yearly budget when that team finishes the regular season with a sub-.400 winning percentage (including any FU losses) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

:LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-WL%)), rounded to the nearest half million

Additionally:

*The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
*The Commissioner may, at his discretion, grant an exemption from the penalties for any team that actively and competently manages its roster throughout the season and does not make a concerted effort to sell players on its active major league roster for future value (i.e., draft picks, cash, or AA players).

For examples, a team with a .380 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-38%)) = LDB$3 million; a team with a .333 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$10 million; and a team with a .200 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$30 million.

== All-star Break ==
LDB will not hold regular games during the week of the MLB All-star Game. That week, at the option of the Commissioner, LDB may either: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and/or (2) fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week, if feasible.

In the event LDB holds an All-star Game, such game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued that week. The Commissioner will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. The division that wins the LDB All-star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series.

== Playoffs ==

=== Advancing to the Playoffs ===
The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Three teams from each division make the playoffs for a total of six total playoff teams. The team with the best record in each division receives a first-round bye while the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best records in each division play each other in the first round. The higher seeded team in each round is the home team. The home team in the championship series (the "Lucid Dream Series") is determined by the winner of the [[#All-star_Break|All-star Game]]. The tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs, determine seeding, and home field advantage in the event no LDB All-star Game takes place are as follows:

# Overall Points
# Head-to-head Record
# Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
# Intra-division Record
# Overall Roto Performance
# Commissioner’s Coin Flip (with witnesses)

In case three teams are tied in overall points, a three team head-to-head tiebreaker is resolved by independent pairwise comparisons. For example:

:Consider 3 teams: A, B, and C:
:* A beat B in Week 1, 9-5
:* A beat C in Week 2, 10-4
:* B beat A in Week 3, 13-1
:* B tied C in Week 4, 7-7
:* B beat C in Week 5, 8-6
:* C beat A in Week 6, 11-3

:Therefore, head-to-head:
:A vs. B = (9+1) vs. (5+13) = 10 vs. 18.
:So B > A

:A vs. C = (10+3) vs. (4+11) = 13 vs. 15.
:So C > A

:B vs. C = (7+8) vs (7+6) = 15 vs. 13
:So B > C

:Therefore, B>C>A, and so B and C make the playoffs. Theoretically, if A = C in head-to-head, we would have to go to another tiebreaker, in this case performance vs. the rest of their division.

=== Playoff Rosters ===
Once playoffs rosters lock for the first time, no more player adds or drops are permitted during playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 25 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted or demoted to/from [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] or [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] until the following Monday. However, position players on the DL may be added to the 25-man roster after rosters lock if there is a space reserved for their potential activation. Any veteran player activated from the DL during a playoff series and not provided a spot on the 25-man roster may sit on a team's bench but not be used on an active roster during the series.

Positional players within the 25-man roster may be freely subbed in and out of slots during playoffs.

Each playoff team must start exactly five pitchers in each round of the playoffs: three starting pitchers, one relief pitcher and one flex (starter or reliever). Pitchers must remain active the entire week and cannot be benched. Teams may select pitchers on the DL as one of their five pitchers, but must also declare alternate, healthy pitchers in case such pitchers on the DL do not make a start in a game during that week. Teams may also, at their option, designate alternate pitchers for pitchers that are not on the DL.

=== Playoff Scoring ===

Pitching stats for the playoff week are as follows: ERA, WHIP, NQW/GS, K/9, HR/9, and STARR.

In the event of a playoff tie in points, such games will be decided by a cumulative measure for each stat category. Specifically: at the end of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each category. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of the season.

:Example
:Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the season, each team has 20 different aSB scores, for 280 data points total. Let's assume that out of the 280 observations of aSB, the mean is 2.5 and the standard deviation is 0.75.

:Now let's say that Team A has 4 aSB and Team B has 2. Team A would get +2 in tiebreaker scoring (because it's 2 Std Devs over the mean) while Team B would be given -0.67 (because it's 2/3 Std Devs. below the mean).

:We repeat this for all stats and see who has the higher total.

:Weights will be calculated annually at the conclusion of the regular season, prior to the conclusion of the first week's playoff matchups. As a proof of concept, we'll calculate the first-half weights at the all-star break to show what the tiebreakers would be if the season ended then (and to show that this is simpler in practice than it sounds in the abstract). We'll also create a plug-and-play google spreadsheet that lets you input the current score of your matchup and automatically calculate who holds the tiebreaker.

=== The McQueeney Cup ===
LDB will award the McQueeney Cup each season to the non-playoff team that wins the McQueeney Cup bracket, which will be played over three rounds parallel to the LDB playoffs, with Union and Federal ladders composed of each divisions' respective four non-playoff teams, seeded in order of regular season finish, with the last round including the Union and Federal finalists. The winner of the McQueeney Cup will receive a sandwich round pick between the first and second round of the amateur draft. In all other respects, McQueeney Cup games are decided as a regular playoff game. The winner of the McQueeney Cup may choose to either take the sandwich round pick or forfeit that pick in exchange for wiping his McQueeney penalties to $0, should he have any.

<references/>

Finances

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198.8.80.86:

== Yearly Budget ==
Each team will begin the season with an amount of cash comparable to the MLB luxury tax threshold,<ref>In 2016 the salary cap will be $189 M. For the 2017, 2018, and 2019 season, the salary cap will be $200 M. Before the 2019 season, the Commissioner will study whether to increase the salary cap for the 2020 season. Any subsequent changes to the salary cap will be announced a full season prior to the changes going into effect, and any changes will be in effect for a minimum of three LDB seasons.</ref> plus any cash carried over from the previous year (subject to the [[Finances#Luxury Tax|LDB Luxury Tax]]).

== Luxury Tax ==
[[File:LDB_Luxury_Tax.png|border|right|250px|]]Any cash carried over from one season to the next not acquired in a trade is subject to the LDB luxury tax. However, the amount of cash acquired in trades not subject to the luxury tax is limited to the difference between the total amount of cash acquired and cash traded during the regular season. The luxury tax brackets are as follows:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Luxury Tax Brachets
|-
| $0-15 million
| No Tax
|-
| $15-25 million
| 50% Tax
|-
| $25+ million
| 75% Tax
|}

The tax rates are marginal, meaning that the first fifteen million is tax free, the ten million from $15-25 million is taxed at 50%, and only funds above $25 million are taxed at 75%.

== Payroll ==
Payroll is tracked on a weekly basis. Teams will only pay players for the weeks during which they play for the team, except in cases where a player is dropped and clears waivers. Upon acquiring a player in trade or through waivers, the acquiring team will owe the player the balance of the player’s annual salary. If a player is acquired by waivers, the waiving team will no longer be responsible for the balance of the player’s annual salary.

Players signed as free agents during the season will be paid a prorated share of the league minimum, $500K.

<references/>

Finances

2016-02-15T06:45:37Z

198.8.80.86:

== Yearly Budget ==
Each team will begin the season with an amount of cash equal to the MLB luxury tax threshold,<ref>LDB’s salary cap is pegged to Major League Baseball’s luxury tax thresholds as specified in the MLB-MLBPA current collective bargaining agreement. In 2016 the salary cap will be $189 M. For the 2017, 2018, and 2019 season, the salary cap will be $200 M. Before the 2019 season, the Commissioner will study whether to increase the salary cap for the 2020 season. Any subsequent changes to the salary cap will be announced a full season prior to the changes going into effect, and any changes will be in effect for a minimum of three LDB seasons.</ref> plus any cash carried over from the previous year (subject to the [[Finances#Luxury Tax|LDB Luxury Tax]]).

== Luxury Tax ==
[[File:LDB_Luxury_Tax.png|border|right|250px|]]Any cash carried over from one season to the next not acquired in a trade is subject to the LDB luxury tax. However, the amount of cash acquired in trades not subject to the luxury tax is limited to the difference between the total amount of cash acquired and cash traded during the regular season. The luxury tax brackets are as follows:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Luxury Tax Brachets
|-
| $0-15 million
| No Tax
|-
| $15-25 million
| 50% Tax
|-
| $25+ million
| 75% Tax
|}

The tax rates are marginal, meaning that the first fifteen million is tax free, the ten million from $15-25 million is taxed at 50%, and only funds above $25 million are taxed at 75%.

== Payroll ==
Payroll is tracked on a weekly basis. Teams will only pay players for the weeks during which they play for the team, except in cases where a player is dropped and clears waivers. Upon acquiring a player in trade or through waivers, the acquiring team will owe the player the balance of the player’s annual salary. If a player is acquired by waivers, the waiving team will no longer be responsible for the balance of the player’s annual salary.

Players signed as free agents during the season will be paid a prorated share of the league minimum, $500K.

<references/>

Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies

2016-02-15T06:42:55Z

198.8.80.86:

== Rule Changes ==

=== Offseason Rule Changes ===
Offseason rule changes are proposed, debated, and voted on as a package in one streamlined rulemaking process during the offseason. The manner in which such process takes place is prescribed by the Commissioner. Offseason rule changes may be proposed to the league by any GM and are adopted by a majority of teams voting for or against such changes. At the conclusion of the official rulemaking process, the Commissioner may also announce subsequent rulemaking processes, as necessary, in the offseason.

=== In-season Rule Changes ===
In-season rule changes are strongly disfavored, but may be instituted so long as no team objects. However, this requirement does not apply in the case of ambiguity, where the [[#Rules Board|Rules Board will craft a rule]].

=== Decisions Crafted by the Rules Board ===
Decisions crafted by the Rules Board due to ambiguity are automatically incorporated into the Rules, whether they occur during the season or in the offseason.

==Commissioner Relief==
The Commissioner may provide relief to teams in situations where a roster mistake or misunderstanding of the Rules: 1) has no impact on the outcome of any LDB matchups, 2) severely hinders a team's ability to compete in either the short or long-term, and 3) is brought to the Commissioner's attention promptly.

== Rules Board ==
Before the beginning of the season, the Commissioner will appoint three GMs and two alternates to the Rules Board, which is charged with resolving disputes between teams and ambiguities in the LDB Rules. Co-GMs may not both serve on the Board. Board members that are interested parties in a dispute over the rules must recuse themselves from deciding such disputes. Board members with the appearance of being interested parties may recuse themselves at their discretion.

When drafting a decision, the Rules Board should consider the goal of these Rules: to mirror the decisions faced by Major League Baseball teams while recognizing the needs of a fantasy baseball league. Where emails exchanged among the league demonstrate a consensus as to purpose behind a specific Rule or set of Rules, that should be considered in interpreting the Rules. If the explicit text of a Rule can only be read in one way, it should be read accordingly; any mid-season change to an unambiguous Rule should come by league vote. If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

=== Actual Disputes ===
When such a dispute arises, a team requesting a ruling should present the question to the League, and the Rules Board will craft a resolution within a reasonable time.

=== Preemptive Rule Interpretations ===
An owner who faces a gray area in the Rules may request an interpretation of that rule in advance. When requesting a rule interpretation may give away a tactic that relies on surprise, requests may be made in secret, but the resulting ruling will be announced within a week of the decision. When relevant, pre-emptive interpretations will be usable as precedent.

== Contingencies ==

=== Data Loss, Unavailability, and Inaccuracy ===
Given the complexity of LDB and the fact that CBS cannot completely accommodate all of the nuances of the game, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data loss, unavailability, and inaccuracy. When such a case arises, the Commissioner will fashion a fix that he feels best furthers the intent of these Rules and the spirit of the league. The Commissioner may allow the Rules Board to decide how to address such a situation. See [[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].

=== Incapacitated GMs ===
Should a GM become incapacitated, unable, or unwilling to manage his or her team, the team will be taken under receivership by the league. During receivership, the league shall collectively manage the team so as to maintain competitive balance within the league. The Commissioner will announce the means by which such a team will be collectively managed.

In the case of an incapacitated GM or GM unable to manage his or her team, if that GM has any chance of regaining the ability to manage within six months or by the next first of March, whichever is longer, the team shall remain in receivership for that period of time. However, if a GM is definitely unable to return, the Commissioner may turn over the team to a new GM as he sees fit.

In the case of a GM unwilling to manage his or her team, the team remains in receivership for as long as the Commissioner sees fit, until it is turned over to a new GM.<ref>Matt McQueeney was unavailable for comment.</ref>

<references/>

Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies

2016-02-15T06:42:11Z

198.8.80.86:

== Rule Changes ==

=== Offseason Rule Changes ===
Offseason rule changes are proposed, debated, and voted on as a package in one streamlined rulemaking process during the offseason. The manner in which such process takes place is prescribed by the Commissioner. Offseason rule changes may be proposed to the league by any GM and are adopted by a majority of teams voting for or against such changes. At the conclusion of the official rulemaking process, the Commissioner may also announce subsequent rulemaking processes, as necessary, in the offseason.

=== In-season Rule Changes ===
In-season rule changes are strongly disfavored, but may be instituted so long as no team objects. However, this requirement does not apply in the case of ambiguity, where the [[#Rules Board|Rules Board will craft a rule]].

=== Decisions Crafted by the Rules Board ===
Decisions crafted by the Rules Board due to ambiguity are automatically incorporated into the Rules, whether they occur during the season or in the offseason.

==Commissioner Relief==
The Commissioner may provide relief to teams in situations where a roster mistake or misunderstanding of the Rules: 1) has no impact on the outcome of any LDB matchups, 2) severely hinders a team's ability to compete in either the short or long-term, and 3) is brought to the Commissioner's attention promptly.

== Rules Board ==
Before the beginning of the season, the Commissioner will appoint three GMs and two alternates to the Rules Board, which is charged with resolving disputes between teams and ambiguities in the LDB Rules. Co-GMs may not both serve on the Board. Board members that are interested parties in a dispute over the rules must recuse themselves from deciding such disputes. Board members with the appearance of being interested parties may recuse themselves at their discretion.

When drafting a decision, the Rules Board should consider the goal of these Rules: to mirror the decisions faced by Major League Baseball teams while recognizing the needs of a fantasy baseball league. Where emails exchanged among the league demonstrate a consensus as to purpose behind a specific Rule or set of Rules, that should be considered in interpreting the Rules. If the explicit text of a Rule can only be read in one way, it should be read accordingly; any mid-season change to an unambiguous Rule should come by league vote. If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

=== Actual Disputes ===
When such a dispute arises, a team requesting a ruling should present the question to the League, and the Rules Board will craft a resolution within a reasonable time.

=== Preemptive Rule Interpretations ==
An owner who faces a gray area in the Rules may request an interpretation of that rule in advance. When requesting a rule interpretation may give away a tactic that relies on surprise, requests may be made in secret, but the resulting ruling will be announced within a week of the decision. When relevant, pre-emptive interpretations will be usable as precedent.

== Contingencies ==

=== Data Loss, Unavailability, and Inaccuracy ===
Given the complexity of LDB and the fact that CBS cannot completely accommodate all of the nuances of the game, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data loss, unavailability, and inaccuracy. When such a case arises, the Commissioner will fashion a fix that he feels best furthers the intent of these Rules and the spirit of the league. The Commissioner may allow the Rules Board to decide how to address such a situation. See [[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].

=== Incapacitated GMs ===
Should a GM become incapacitated, unable, or unwilling to manage his or her team, the team will be taken under receivership by the league. During receivership, the league shall collectively manage the team so as to maintain competitive balance within the league. The Commissioner will announce the means by which such a team will be collectively managed.

In the case of an incapacitated GM or GM unable to manage his or her team, if that GM has any chance of regaining the ability to manage within six months or by the next first of March, whichever is longer, the team shall remain in receivership for that period of time. However, if a GM is definitely unable to return, the Commissioner may turn over the team to a new GM as he sees fit.

In the case of a GM unwilling to manage his or her team, the team remains in receivership for as long as the Commissioner sees fit, until it is turned over to a new GM.<ref>Matt McQueeney was unavailable for comment.</ref>

<references/>

Keepers and Drafts

2016-02-15T06:36:22Z

198.8.80.86:

== Keepers ==

=== Majors and AAA Players ===
In the off-season, GMs will be able to designate five players on their [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]] and [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] rosters as keepers. Only players signed to long-term deals (contract status of K1/2/3) are eligible to be kept. These players are retained for the next year at their current salary: auction price, less a 10% signing bonus. However, no player can be paid less than the [[Finances#Payroll|league minimum]]). A player may be kept twice for a total of three seasons with a team, and then they become a [[#Restricted Free Agents|restricted free agent]].

==== Restricted Free Agents ====
After players have served three seasons under a contract, they are restricted free agents (RFAs). RFAs are up for auction during the following [[#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]. However, the GM owning RFA rights has the option to match the winning bid for that player. The team with RFA rights is generally the previous owner, unless the RFA rights were previously [[External Transactions#Trades|traded]] to another team.

====Hometown Heroes====
Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents or mid-season free agents claimed from waivers as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics on the active roster of the team wishing to grant HTH status. The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Teams have the option to expand the number of HTH contracts granted each year beyond the one provided by substituting for a commensurate number of keeper contracts.

=== Homegrown and Super-twos ===

Homegrown players are players drafted into [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] (and possibly promoted). Homegrown players do not count against the [[#Majors and AAA Players|Majors/AAA keeper total]]. After AA players' promotion to AAA or the Majors, they are subject to the following salary schedule:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | Homegrown Salary Structure
|-
| Year 1
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 2
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 3
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
|}

If a homegrown player is traded, they remain on the same salary structure when they join their new team, unless released and not claimed on waivers.

Teams may promote a homegrown player in the second half of a the LDB season (after week 10's final roster lock) without starting the four-year clock on their homegrown status. These players are "super-twos" and are treated exactly as homegrown players for keeper purposes, but they follow an accelerated salary promotion scale:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="3" | Super-two Salary Structure
|-
| Salary Year
| Pre-2014 Promotion
| Current
|-
| Year 0 (promotion year)
| $0.5 million
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 1
| $1.0 million
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 2
| $2.0 million
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 3
| $4.0 million
| $4.0 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
| $7.5 million
|}

Teams may decide upon promotion whether they want they player to use up a year of eligibility or to be a super-two at promotion time through notice to the Commissioner.

===Injured Keepers===
After the keeper deadline, but prior to the start of the auction, a team may release any keeper, H4, S4 or HTH and receive their salary in full for use at the upcoming auction if a player is injured or an injury (or updated extent of an injury) is reported after the keeper deadline. If a team releases a keeper or HTH under this rule, they may not designate a replacement keeper or HTH.

== AA Draft ==

The first phase of a season's draft will be the AA Draft, the only means for adding to a team's [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA Roster]] besides trades. Two years prior to the draft, each team will be given three or four AA draft picks, depending on the availability of prospects, as determined by the Commissioner. These draft picks are tradable. The Commissioner may award new picks at his discretion to teams inherited by a new GM that sold off an abundance of prospects and AA draft picks during the season prior.

To draft a player in the AA Draft, the player must be MLB rookie-eligible (i.e., less than 131 AB or 50 IP, not counting September call-up experience).

The AA Draft will be held prior to a new season, as the Commissioner sees fit, subject to the requirements herein. For teams that do not make playoffs, the AA draft order will be in ascending order by wins from the previous season. Wins are used rather than the winning percentage to remove any advantage from intentionally forfeiting games by missing the innings requirement. The order for teams missing playoffs is then followed by teams making playoff appearances in ascending order of finishing places. The draft position of a traded draft pick corresponds to the original owner, not the owner at the time of the AA Draft.

=== Logistics and Requirements ===

Once a team is on the clock and has not picked for one full day (24 hours), that team will incur a $2 million fine, and the draft may continue on as if he has picked. Such a team may jump back in and pick at any time. A team may assign another GM to make the pick on its behalf.

If the draft is not complete by 10 PM EST on the Friday prior to the auction, the three teams who have caused the longest delay between picks, counting only the hours between noon and 10 PM EST, will each be fined $1 million for each pick remaining in the draft. The delay must be at least 3 hours to qualify for this fine. In this situation the AA draft will be completed on the morning of the auction before the auction commences.

== Majors Draft ==

[[File:Place_your_bids.jpg|border|right|250px|]]After the AA Draft, LDB will draft [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors players]]. The draft will be in an auction format. The Majors draft will take place at a time established by the Commissioner.

At the draft, teams will nominate players in an order established by the Commissioner. A nominating team will name the player and an opening bid for that player. The bid must be at least the minimum league salary. Other owners may choose to raise the bid on that player. The team that turns in the highest bid will be awarded the player.

Bidding prices are subject to these increments:
* $0.5 million - $9.5 million: $0.5 million
* More than $9.5 million: $1 million

In the event of a tie, deference is afforded to bidders drafting remotely. In the event the tie is between two remote or two present GMs, the tiebreaker will go to the team that comes first in the nomination order after the GM who nominated the player. If a GM is involved in a tiebreaker, they will win the next tiebreaker he is involved with.

If a player being drafted is an RFA, the team holding RFA rights may match the final bid once it is in and re-sign the player for a fourth year.

GMs may draft until: (1) they have Majors no more roster space, (2) run out of money, or (3) pass their turn to nominate a player. The Majors draft ends when no GM can make a new nomination.

===Blind Auction Option===
The Commissioner may timely announce that any number of rounds will be conducted by blind auction. In a blind auction, teams take turns nominating players as they do above. Nominating a player requires the nominating team to post at least a minimum salary bid. Teams then simultaneously make a single bid. The highest bid wins the player. Ties are resolved by: (1) deferral, (2) an open "bidding war" process that resembles our current open auction, or (3) draft nomination order in the event that nobody defers or offers a higher bid.

== AAA Draft ==

The final component of a season's draft is the AAA Draft. Every [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA player]] chosen in the AAA draft receives the league minimum salary. Up to three AAA draftees may be given non-guaranteed (NG) contracts, which the drafting team must declare as the player is drafted. See [[External Transactions]] for the benefits and limitations of NG contracts.

== Rule V Draft ==

In order to dissuade teams from retaining players in AA that are performing well in MLB, LDB will hold an MLB Rule V-style draft during each year's All-star Break. In that draft, teams may poach such players from other teams farm systems. To be eligible for the Rule V Draft, a player must:
* Currently be in LDB AA,
* Not be a team's designated protected player,
* Be age 23 or above as of draft day (birthday on draft day counts),
* Have accumulated 900 PA, 225 IP, or 50 pitching appearances over his career, and
* Currently be on an MLB team's 25 man roster.

The Rule V draft will take place over the All-star Break each season. During that week, and before the draft begins, teams will be afforded an opportunity to announce one protected player that cannot be drafted and to promote AA players subject to the Rule V draft before the draft. A player may not be designated as a "protected player" in consecutive years. The draft will last until each team passes. Once a team passes, the team may still participate further in the draft. There are no restrictions on the number of players one team may take or have taken from them. The draft order will be non-serpentine, with the order being in reverse order of the then-current standings at the close of the LDB week preceding the all-star game. The commissioner will conduct the Rule V Draft via means he or she deems most efficient (e.g., email, website, or conference call).

Teams drafting players by Rule V will be required to keep them on their LDB Majors roster for the following one and a half seasons. Teams may place Rule V draftees on the DL. However, spending a half season (10 weeks, aggregated over all DL stints), does not count toward the one and a half seasons. Owners will not be required to include Rule V draftees on their playoff roster.

Rule V draftees may be traded. Traded Rule V draftees or draftees claimed off of waivers will remain under the same restrictions for teams acquiring them.

If a team is unable to maintain the player in LDB Majors or the DL and cannot move him by trade, the player must be offered back to his original team for $0.2 million. If the original team declines to take the player, he enters general waivers. When an original owner acquires a player back before they have cleared waivers, the original team is under Rule V restrictions described here.

Teams may not change their protected player once the draft begins without either promoting that player or subjecting him to waivers.

<references/>

Lucid Dream Baseball League Rules

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198.8.80.86: /* External Transactions */

{| style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; border:0;"
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2007.jpg|border|150px|2007 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2008.jpg|border|150px|2008 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2010.jpg|border|150px|2010 Draft]]
|-
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2011.jpg|border|150px|2011 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2012.jpg|border|150px|2012 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|
|-
| valign="center" align="center" colspan="3"| A study in technological advances of cell phone cameras.
|}Lucid Dream Baseball (LDB) is a fantasy baseball league designed to mirror owning and managing a Major League Baseball franchise as nearly as possible. LDB principally accomplishes this two ways: (1) providing each league member deep organizational tiers that allow all types of players, from marquee superstars to young prospects and (2) calculating player performance from statistics that better measure player performance than traditional fantasy baseball systems. LDB also offers other features that better simulate team management than traditional fantasy baseball systems, including a yearly budget, trades that involve assets other than players, rules for internal team management that mirror MLB, among others.

Each LDB league member will be the GM of his or her own franchise, in complete control of team payroll, roster composition, game lineups, and management of the farm system.<ref>However, a GM may opt to appoint a co-manager. Co-managed teams have one vote on trade vetoes, rule changes, etc.</ref> Financial constraints have been designed to resemble those of the top-tier of MLB organizations, and GMs will have the ability to engage in realistic transactions and roster moves to put their teams in the best position to win. Given the unique features LDB offers, LDB GMs have a higher responsibility to manage their team than they would in an average fantasy league.<ref>[[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].</ref>
__NOTOC__
==[[Organizational Structure]]==
* [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]]

==[[Finances]]==
* [[Finances#Yearly Budget|Yearly Budget]]
* [[Finances#Luxury Tax|Luxury Tax]]
* [[Finances#Payroll|Payroll]]

==[[Keepers and Drafts]]==
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Keepers|Keepers]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AA Draft|AA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AAA Draft|AAA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Rule V Draft|Rule V Draft]]

==[[The Game]]==
* [[The Game#Schedule|Schedule]]
* [[The Game#Scoring|Scoring]]
* [[The Game#Roster Requirements|Roster Requirements]]
* [[The Game#McQueeney Performance Penalties|McQueeney Performance Penalties]]
* [[The Game#All-star Break|All-star Break]]
* [[The Game#Playoffs|Playoffs]]

==[[Internal Transactions]]==
* [[Internal Transactions#Disabled List Transactions|Disabled List Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AAA Transactions|AAA Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AA Transactions|AA Transactions]]

==[[External Transactions]]==
* [[External Transactions#Designation for Assignment|Designation for Assignment]]
* [[External Transactions#Mid-Season Free Agents|Mid-Season Free Agents]]
* [[External Transactions#Waiver Claims|Waiver Claims]]
* [[External Transactions#Trades|Trades]]
* [[External Transactions#Bets Involving LDB Assets ("Friendly Wagers")|Bets Involving LDB Assets ("Friendly Wagers")]]

==[[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies]]==
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rule Changes|Rule Changes]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Commissioner Relief|Commissioner Relief]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rules Board|Rules Board]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Contingencies|Contingencies]]

==[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zv1CQUTWkl3Limne9-pJbF_e8yW41Bl1CqWE1ZDktYg/edit?usp=sharing Future Rule Changes]==

==[[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter]]==
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#Legacy Rules|Legacy Rules]]
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#LDB Rules Board Reporter|LDB Rules Board Reporter]]

<references/>

External Transactions

2016-02-15T06:28:59Z

198.8.80.86:

== Designation for Assignment ==
Players being cut or demoted to [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] are designated for assignment. Designation immediately removes the player from the [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]] or AAA roster, and subjects him to a 3-day waiver process. Such players are available to trade for the next three days. If they are not traded after three days, they are given to the highest waiver claimant. If the player is not claimed on waivers, the player is cut. Designation is not revokable. Refunds are not awarded for players unclaimed on waivers.

== Mid-Season Free Agents ==
Any unsigned player can be acquired mid-season. Players who are acquired mid-year are paid the [[Finances#Payroll|league minimum]].

Players drafted in the [[Keepers and Drafts#AAA Draft|AAA Draft]] with non-guaranteed contracts may be freely swapped for a replacement player who is in the same player grouping (i.e., SP, RP, inﬁelder, outﬁelder, catcher) until the end of April. Replacement players cannot be swapped for other replacement players. Players with NG contracts cannot be kept at the conclusion of the season.

== Waiver Claims ==
Any player on waivers can be claimed. At the end of the waiver period, the claim will be awarded to whatever team made the claim that has the lowest overall season-to-date record, measured on the date of expiration of the waiver period. In the case of a tie, the player will first be awarded to the team with the lowest division record. In the case of a further tie, the player will be awarded to the team in a different division. In the case of a further tie, the previous season’s record will be used, with the award to the team that finished in a lower standing. In the case of a further tie, the winning teams will publicly auction on the player for the rights to acquire. Funds paid toward acquisition do not offset any of the assumed salary burden, and are on top of the assumed salary. Awarding a player results in the acquisition of that player, pending roster space being made available for the new player. The claiming team assumes the remaining salary burden of the player, calculated by remaining weeks in the LDB regular season.

== Trades ==
Trades may occur at any point in the off-season and during the season, up to the league trade deadline, which will be the end of week 15. All trades must have timestamp of 11:59 PM EST<ref>The standard time zone for LDB is Eastern Standard Time.</ref> on Sunday of week 15 or earlier, or have been announced to the league in a reasonable manner before that deadline.

Trades will be subject to approval by a vote of the other managers in the league. If greater than one-half of the non-involved managers veto a trade, the trade will be cancelled. The veto window is three days. All trades will be immediate. A veto of a trade will be prospective; if vetoed, the players traded will have their stats count for their teams that temporarily held them.

Trades may involve players and cash, but just as in MLB, players cannot be dealt only for cash. Trades may also involve other assets, such as, but not limited to, future [[Keepers_and_Drafts#AA_Draft|draft picks]], [[Keepers_and_Drafts#Restricted_Free_Agents|RFA rights]], etc. Trades can include a "player to be named later" as long as that player has not accumulated any LDB stats between the trade and the player changing hands. As a general policy, trades are looked upon favorably, regardless of the types of assets involved. The full terms of a trade need not be fully disclosed to the league and may involve gentlemen's agreements and other conditions.

However, no trade may involve an agreement to temporarily hold or "rent" a player. Any trade that attempts to work around the ban on renting players is also prohibited. For example, a trade involving an agreement to later send back a player of similar value could be considered a workaround. Whether a trade constitutes a rental or an attempted workaround will be determined by a Rules Committee vote, if one is called for.

==Bets Involving LDB Assets ("Friendly Wagers")==
"Friendly wagers" are the only class of transactions that can include yet-unrealized future assets (money, AA picks past the 2-year allocation window, yet-unborn naming rights to sons/daughters, etc). Friendly wagers cannot adversely impact the competitiveness of the league (if there is question about whether a wager will do so, the wager's status will be determined by that year's Rules Board). All assets involved in friendly wagers will be held in escrow, a spreadsheet that will spell out the parties, terms, timeline, and payouts of the friendly wager. Friendly wagers are bound to the team, rather than the owner, such that a owner's departure does not invalidate the wager (unless specified in the terms of the wager). In the event a team's owner leaves, new prospective owners should be made aware of the team's wagered obligations before agreeing to take control of a team, as the assets are held in escrow and will only be released pursuant to the terms of the wager.

<references/>

Organizational Structure

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198.8.80.86: /* Pitchers */

Each LDB franchise has three tiers: Majors, AAA, and AA.

== Majors ==

The Majors level is a 25-man roster and represents the active players on the team whose performance may affect scoring. It closely resembles an MLB franchise. All 25 players are available for active duty, and are broken down into the following positions:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! Hitters
! Pitchers
|-
| Catcher
| rowspan="4" | Starting Pitchers (5)
|-
| First Base
|-
| Second Base
|-
| Short Stop
|-
| Third Base
| rowspan="5" | Relief Pitchers (6)
|-
| Left Field
|-
| Center Field
|-
| Right Field
|-
| Designated Hitters (2)
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" | Bench (4)
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" | Disabled List (3)
|}

=== Positional Eligibility ===

==== Hitters ====
For hitters, a player is eligible for a position if (1) that player made 20 appearances in that position during the previous season or (2) the player appeared at that position for 50% of games in April of the current season, or, after April, appeared at that position a total of 15 times during the season. Until a hitter meets one of these thresholds, he may bat as a designated hitter only.

==== Pitchers ====
For pitchers, to be eligible as a starting pitcher, a player must have appeared as a starting pitcher in one game during the previous or current season. To be eligible as a relief pitcher, a player must have appeared as a relief pitcher in one game during the previous or current season.

==== Disabled List ====
A player in the Majors is eligible to be on the Disabled List (DL) when he is on the MLB DL. See [[Internal Transactions]] for other rules related to the DL.

== AAA ==

The AAA tier is a roster of any seven players, hitters or pitchers. See [[Internal Transactions]] for rules relating to service time and waivers, which may affect a team's choice to promote from, or demote to, AAA.

== AA ==

The AA tier is a roster of unlimited rookie players signed in the AA draft. See [[Internal Transactions]] for rules relating to the consequences of promoting a player out of AA.

<references/>

Keepers and Drafts

2016-02-15T06:21:27Z

198.8.80.86: /* Blind Auction Trial for 2015 */

== Keepers ==

=== Majors and AAA Players ===
In the off-season, GMs will be able to designate five players on their [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]] and [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] rosters as keepers. Only players signed to long-term deals (contract status of K1/2/3) are eligible to be kept. These players are retained for the next year at their current salary: auction price, less a 10% signing bonus. However, no player can be paid less than the [[Finances#Payroll|league minimum]]). A player may be kept twice for a total of three seasons with a team, and then they become a [[#Restricted Free Agents|restricted free agent]].

==== Restricted Free Agents ====
After players have served three seasons under a contract, they are restricted free agents (RFAs). RFAs are up for auction during the following [[#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]. However, the GM owning RFA rights has the option to match the winning bid for that player. The team with RFA rights is generally the previous owner, unless the RFA rights were previously [[External Transactions#Trades|traded]] to another team.

====Hometown Heroes====
Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents or mid-season free agents claimed from waivers as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics on the active roster of the team wishing to grant HTH status. The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Teams have the option to expand the number of HTH contracts granted each year beyond the one provided by substituting for a commensurate number of keeper contracts.

=== Homegrown and Super-twos ===

Homegrown players are players drafted into [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] (and possibly promoted). Homegrown players do not count against the [[#Majors and AAA Players|Majors/AAA keeper total]]. After AA players' promotion to AAA or the Majors, they are subject to the following salary schedule:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | Homegrown Salary Structure
|-
| Year 1
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 2
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 3
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
|}

If a homegrown player is traded, they remain on the same salary structure when they join their new team, unless released and not claimed on waivers.

Teams may promote a homegrown player in the second half of a the LDB season (after week 10's final roster lock) without starting the four-year clock on their homegrown status. These players are "super-twos" and are treated exactly as homegrown players for keeper purposes, but they follow an accelerated salary promotion scale:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="3" | Super-two Salary Structure
|-
| Salary Year
| Pre-2014 Promotion
| Current
|-
| Year 0 (promotion year)
| $0.5 million
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 1
| $1.0 million
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 2
| $2.0 million
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 3
| $4.0 million
| $4.0 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
| $7.5 million
|}

Teams may decide upon promotion whether they want they player to use up a year of eligibility or to be a super-two at promotion time through notice to the Commissioner.

== AA Draft ==

The first phase of a season's draft will be the AA Draft, the only means for adding to a team's [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA Roster]] besides trades. Two years prior to the draft, each team will be given three or four AA draft picks, depending on the availability of prospects, as determined by the Commissioner. These draft picks are tradable. The Commissioner may award new picks at his discretion to teams inherited by a new GM that sold off an abundance of prospects and AA draft picks during the season prior.

To draft a player in the AA Draft, the player must be MLB rookie-eligible (i.e., less than 131 AB or 50 IP, not counting September call-up experience).

The AA Draft will be held prior to a new season, as the Commissioner sees fit, subject to the requirements herein. For teams that do not make playoffs, the AA draft order will be in ascending order by wins from the previous season. Wins are used rather than the winning percentage to remove any advantage from intentionally forfeiting games by missing the innings requirement. The order for teams missing playoffs is then followed by teams making playoff appearances in ascending order of finishing places. The draft position of a traded draft pick corresponds to the original owner, not the owner at the time of the AA Draft.

=== Logistics and Requirements ===

Once a team is on the clock and has not picked for one full day (24 hours), that team will incur a $2 million fine, and the draft may continue on as if he has picked. Such a team may jump back in and pick at any time. A team may assign another GM to make the pick on its behalf.

If the draft is not complete by 10 PM EST on the Friday prior to the auction, the three teams who have caused the longest delay between picks, counting only the hours between noon and 10 PM EST, will each be fined $1 million for each pick remaining in the draft. The delay must be at least 3 hours to qualify for this fine. In this situation the AA draft will be completed on the morning of the auction before the auction commences.

== Majors Draft ==

[[File:Place_your_bids.jpg|border|right|250px|]]After the AA Draft, LDB will draft [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors players]]. The draft will be in an auction format. The Majors draft will take place at a time established by the Commissioner.

At the draft, teams will nominate players in an order established by the Commissioner. A nominating team will name the player and an opening bid for that player. The bid must be at least the minimum league salary. Other owners may choose to raise the bid on that player. The team that turns in the highest bid will be awarded the player.

Bidding prices are subject to these increments:
* $0.5 million - $9.5 million: $0.5 million
* More than $9.5 million: $1 million

In the event of a tie, deference is afforded to bidders drafting remotely. In the event the tie is between two remote or two present GMs, the tiebreaker will go to the team that comes first in the nomination order after the GM who nominated the player. If a GM is involved in a tiebreaker, they will win the next tiebreaker he is involved with.

If a player being drafted is an RFA, the team holding RFA rights may match the final bid once it is in and re-sign the player for a fourth year.

GMs may draft until: (1) they have Majors no more roster space, (2) run out of money, or (3) pass their turn to nominate a player. The Majors draft ends when no GM can make a new nomination.

===Blind Auction Option===
The Commissioner may timely announce that any number of rounds will be conducted by blind auction. In a blind auction, teams take turns nominating players as they do above. Nominating a player requires the nominating team to post at least a minimum salary bid. Teams then simultaneously make a single bid. The highest bid wins the player. Ties are resolved by: (1) deferral, (2) an open "bidding war" process that resembles our current open auction, or (3) draft nomination order in the event that nobody defers or offers a higher bid.

== AAA Draft ==

The final component of a season's draft is the AAA Draft. Every [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA player]] chosen in the AAA draft receives the league minimum salary. Up to three AAA draftees may be given non-guaranteed (NG) contracts, which the drafting team must declare as the player is drafted. See [[External Transactions]] for the benefits and limitations of NG contracts.

== Rule V Draft ==

In order to dissuade teams from retaining players in AA that are performing well in MLB, LDB will hold an MLB Rule V-style draft during each year's All-star Break. In that draft, teams may poach such players from other teams farm systems. To be eligible for the Rule V Draft, a player must:
* Currently be in LDB AA,
* Not be a team's designated protected player,
* Be age 23 or above as of draft day (birthday on draft day counts),
* Have accumulated 900 PA, 225 IP, or 50 pitching appearances over his career, and
* Currently be on an MLB team's 25 man roster.

The Rule V draft will take place over the All-star Break each season. During that week, and before the draft begins, teams will be afforded an opportunity to announce one protected player that cannot be drafted and to promote AA players subject to the Rule V draft before the draft. A player may not be designated as a "protected player" in consecutive years. The draft will last until each team passes. Once a team passes, the team may still participate further in the draft. There are no restrictions on the number of players one team may take or have taken from them. The draft order will be non-serpentine, with the order being in reverse order of the then-current standings at the close of the LDB week preceding the all-star game. The commissioner will conduct the Rule V Draft via means he or she deems most efficient (e.g., email, website, or conference call).

Teams drafting players by Rule V will be required to keep them on their LDB Majors roster for the following one and a half seasons. Teams may place Rule V draftees on the DL. However, spending a half season (10 weeks, aggregated over all DL stints), does not count toward the one and a half seasons. Owners will not be required to include Rule V draftees on their playoff roster.

Rule V draftees may be traded. Traded Rule V draftees or draftees claimed off of waivers will remain under the same restrictions for teams acquiring them.

If a team is unable to maintain the player in LDB Majors or the DL and cannot move him by trade, the player must be offered back to his original team for $0.2 million. If the original team declines to take the player, he enters general waivers. When an original owner acquires a player back before they have cleared waivers, the original team is under Rule V restrictions described here.

Teams may not change their protected player once the draft begins without either promoting that player or subjecting him to waivers.

<references/>

Keepers and Drafts

2016-02-15T06:18:59Z

198.8.80.86: /* Hometown Heroes */

== Keepers ==

=== Majors and AAA Players ===
In the off-season, GMs will be able to designate five players on their [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]] and [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] rosters as keepers. Only players signed to long-term deals (contract status of K1/2/3) are eligible to be kept. These players are retained for the next year at their current salary: auction price, less a 10% signing bonus. However, no player can be paid less than the [[Finances#Payroll|league minimum]]). A player may be kept twice for a total of three seasons with a team, and then they become a [[#Restricted Free Agents|restricted free agent]].

==== Restricted Free Agents ====
After players have served three seasons under a contract, they are restricted free agents (RFAs). RFAs are up for auction during the following [[#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]. However, the GM owning RFA rights has the option to match the winning bid for that player. The team with RFA rights is generally the previous owner, unless the RFA rights were previously [[External Transactions#Trades|traded]] to another team.

====Hometown Heroes====
Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents or mid-season free agents claimed from waivers as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics on the active roster of the team wishing to grant HTH status. The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

Teams have the option to expand the number of HTH contracts granted each year beyond the one provided by substituting for a commensurate number of keeper contracts.

=== Homegrown and Super-twos ===

Homegrown players are players drafted into [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] (and possibly promoted). Homegrown players do not count against the [[#Majors and AAA Players|Majors/AAA keeper total]]. After AA players' promotion to AAA or the Majors, they are subject to the following salary schedule:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | Homegrown Salary Structure
|-
| Year 1
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 2
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 3
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
|}

If a homegrown player is traded, they remain on the same salary structure when they join their new team, unless released and not claimed on waivers.

Teams may promote a homegrown player in the second half of a the LDB season (after week 10's final roster lock) without starting the four-year clock on their homegrown status. These players are "super-twos" and are treated exactly as homegrown players for keeper purposes, but they follow an accelerated salary promotion scale:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="3" | Super-two Salary Structure
|-
| Salary Year
| Pre-2014 Promotion
| Current
|-
| Year 0 (promotion year)
| $0.5 million
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 1
| $1.0 million
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 2
| $2.0 million
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 3
| $4.0 million
| $4.0 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
| $7.5 million
|}

Teams may decide upon promotion whether they want they player to use up a year of eligibility or to be a super-two at promotion time through notice to the Commissioner.

== AA Draft ==

The first phase of a season's draft will be the AA Draft, the only means for adding to a team's [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA Roster]] besides trades. Two years prior to the draft, each team will be given three or four AA draft picks, depending on the availability of prospects, as determined by the Commissioner. These draft picks are tradable. The Commissioner may award new picks at his discretion to teams inherited by a new GM that sold off an abundance of prospects and AA draft picks during the season prior.

To draft a player in the AA Draft, the player must be MLB rookie-eligible (i.e., less than 131 AB or 50 IP, not counting September call-up experience).

The AA Draft will be held prior to a new season, as the Commissioner sees fit, subject to the requirements herein. For teams that do not make playoffs, the AA draft order will be in ascending order by wins from the previous season. Wins are used rather than the winning percentage to remove any advantage from intentionally forfeiting games by missing the innings requirement. The order for teams missing playoffs is then followed by teams making playoff appearances in ascending order of finishing places. The draft position of a traded draft pick corresponds to the original owner, not the owner at the time of the AA Draft.

=== Logistics and Requirements ===

Once a team is on the clock and has not picked for one full day (24 hours), that team will incur a $2 million fine, and the draft may continue on as if he has picked. Such a team may jump back in and pick at any time. A team may assign another GM to make the pick on its behalf.

If the draft is not complete by 10 PM EST on the Friday prior to the auction, the three teams who have caused the longest delay between picks, counting only the hours between noon and 10 PM EST, will each be fined $1 million for each pick remaining in the draft. The delay must be at least 3 hours to qualify for this fine. In this situation the AA draft will be completed on the morning of the auction before the auction commences.

== Majors Draft ==

[[File:Place_your_bids.jpg|border|right|250px|]]After the AA Draft, LDB will draft [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors players]]. The draft will be in an auction format. The Majors draft will take place at a time established by the Commissioner.

At the draft, teams will nominate players in an order established by the Commissioner. A nominating team will name the player and an opening bid for that player. The bid must be at least the minimum league salary. Other owners may choose to raise the bid on that player. The team that turns in the highest bid will be awarded the player.

Bidding prices are subject to these increments:
* $0.5 million - $9.5 million: $0.5 million
* More than $9.5 million: $1 million

In the event of a tie, deference is afforded to bidders drafting remotely. In the event the tie is between two remote or two present GMs, the tiebreaker will go to the team that comes first in the nomination order after the GM who nominated the player. If a GM is involved in a tiebreaker, they will win the next tiebreaker he is involved with.

If a player being drafted is an RFA, the team holding RFA rights may match the final bid once it is in and re-sign the player for a fourth year.

GMs may draft until: (1) they have Majors no more roster space, (2) run out of money, or (3) pass their turn to nominate a player. The Majors draft ends when no GM can make a new nomination.

===Blind Auction Trial for 2015===
During the third, tenth, and thirteenth round, we will conduct those auctions by blind bidding. Teams take turns nominating players as they do above. Nominating a player requires you to post at least a minimum salary bid. Teams then simultaneously make a single bid. The highest bid wins the player. Ties are resolved by: (1) deferral, (2) an open "bidding war" process that resembles our current open auction, or (3) draft nomination order in the event that nobody defers or offers a higher bid.

== AAA Draft ==

The final component of a season's draft is the AAA Draft. Every [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA player]] chosen in the AAA draft receives the league minimum salary. Up to three AAA draftees may be given non-guaranteed (NG) contracts, which the drafting team must declare as the player is drafted. See [[External Transactions]] for the benefits and limitations of NG contracts.

== Rule V Draft ==

In order to dissuade teams from retaining players in AA that are performing well in MLB, LDB will hold an MLB Rule V-style draft during each year's All-star Break. In that draft, teams may poach such players from other teams farm systems. To be eligible for the Rule V Draft, a player must:
* Currently be in LDB AA,
* Not be a team's designated protected player,
* Be age 23 or above as of draft day (birthday on draft day counts),
* Have accumulated 900 PA, 225 IP, or 50 pitching appearances over his career, and
* Currently be on an MLB team's 25 man roster.

The Rule V draft will take place over the All-star Break each season. During that week, and before the draft begins, teams will be afforded an opportunity to announce one protected player that cannot be drafted and to promote AA players subject to the Rule V draft before the draft. A player may not be designated as a "protected player" in consecutive years. The draft will last until each team passes. Once a team passes, the team may still participate further in the draft. There are no restrictions on the number of players one team may take or have taken from them. The draft order will be non-serpentine, with the order being in reverse order of the then-current standings at the close of the LDB week preceding the all-star game. The commissioner will conduct the Rule V Draft via means he or she deems most efficient (e.g., email, website, or conference call).

Teams drafting players by Rule V will be required to keep them on their LDB Majors roster for the following one and a half seasons. Teams may place Rule V draftees on the DL. However, spending a half season (10 weeks, aggregated over all DL stints), does not count toward the one and a half seasons. Owners will not be required to include Rule V draftees on their playoff roster.

Rule V draftees may be traded. Traded Rule V draftees or draftees claimed off of waivers will remain under the same restrictions for teams acquiring them.

If a team is unable to maintain the player in LDB Majors or the DL and cannot move him by trade, the player must be offered back to his original team for $0.2 million. If the original team declines to take the player, he enters general waivers. When an original owner acquires a player back before they have cleared waivers, the original team is under Rule V restrictions described here.

Teams may not change their protected player once the draft begins without either promoting that player or subjecting him to waivers.

<references/>

Lucid Dream Baseball League Rules

2016-02-15T06:16:49Z

198.8.80.86:

{| style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; border:0;"
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2007.jpg|border|150px|2007 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2008.jpg|border|150px|2008 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2010.jpg|border|150px|2010 Draft]]
|-
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2011.jpg|border|150px|2011 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2012.jpg|border|150px|2012 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|
|-
| valign="center" align="center" colspan="3"| A study in technological advances of cell phone cameras.
|}Lucid Dream Baseball (LDB) is a fantasy baseball league designed to mirror owning and managing a Major League Baseball franchise as nearly as possible. LDB principally accomplishes this two ways: (1) providing each league member deep organizational tiers that allow all types of players, from marquee superstars to young prospects and (2) calculating player performance from statistics that better measure player performance than traditional fantasy baseball systems. LDB also offers other features that better simulate team management than traditional fantasy baseball systems, including a yearly budget, trades that involve assets other than players, rules for internal team management that mirror MLB, among others.

Each LDB league member will be the GM of his or her own franchise, in complete control of team payroll, roster composition, game lineups, and management of the farm system.<ref>However, a GM may opt to appoint a co-manager. Co-managed teams have one vote on trade vetoes, rule changes, etc.</ref> Financial constraints have been designed to resemble those of the top-tier of MLB organizations, and GMs will have the ability to engage in realistic transactions and roster moves to put their teams in the best position to win. Given the unique features LDB offers, LDB GMs have a higher responsibility to manage their team than they would in an average fantasy league.<ref>[[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].</ref>
__NOTOC__
==[[Organizational Structure]]==
* [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]]

==[[Finances]]==
* [[Finances#Yearly Budget|Yearly Budget]]
* [[Finances#Luxury Tax|Luxury Tax]]
* [[Finances#Payroll|Payroll]]

==[[Keepers and Drafts]]==
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Keepers|Keepers]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AA Draft|AA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AAA Draft|AAA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Rule V Draft|Rule V Draft]]

==[[The Game]]==
* [[The Game#Schedule|Schedule]]
* [[The Game#Scoring|Scoring]]
* [[The Game#Roster Requirements|Roster Requirements]]
* [[The Game#McQueeney Performance Penalties|McQueeney Performance Penalties]]
* [[The Game#All-star Break|All-star Break]]
* [[The Game#Playoffs|Playoffs]]

==[[Internal Transactions]]==
* [[Internal Transactions#Disabled List Transactions|Disabled List Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AAA Transactions|AAA Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AA Transactions|AA Transactions]]

==[[External Transactions]]==
* [[External Transactions#Designation for Assignment|Designation for Assignment]]
* [[External Transactions#Mid-Season Free Agents|Mid-Season Free Agents]]
* [[External Transactions#Waiver Claims|Waiver Claims]]
* [[External Transactions#Trades|Trades]]

==[[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies]]==
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rule Changes|Rule Changes]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Commissioner Relief|Commissioner Relief]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rules Board|Rules Board]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Contingencies|Contingencies]]

==[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zv1CQUTWkl3Limne9-pJbF_e8yW41Bl1CqWE1ZDktYg/edit?usp=sharing Future Rule Changes]==

==[[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter]]==
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#Legacy Rules|Legacy Rules]]
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#LDB Rules Board Reporter|LDB Rules Board Reporter]]

<references/>

Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies

2016-02-15T06:16:10Z

198.8.80.86:

== Rule Changes ==

=== Offseason Rule Changes ===
Offseason rule changes are proposed, debated, and voted on as a package in one streamlined rulemaking process during the offseason. The manner in which such process takes place is prescribed by the Commissioner. Offseason rule changes may be proposed to the league by any GM and are adopted by a majority of teams voting for or against such changes. At the conclusion of the official rulemaking process, the Commissioner may also announce subsequent rulemaking processes, as necessary, in the offseason.

=== In-season Rule Changes ===
In-season rule changes are strongly disfavored, but may be instituted so long as no team objects. However, this requirement does not apply in the case of ambiguity, where the [[#Rules Board|Rules Board will craft a rule]].

=== Decisions Crafted by the Rules Board ===
Decisions crafted by the Rules Board due to ambiguity are automatically incorporated into the Rules, whether they occur during the season or in the offseason.

==Commissioner Relief==
The Commissioner may provide relief to teams in situations where a roster mistake or misunderstanding of the Rules: 1) has no impact on the outcome of any LDB matchups, 2) severely hinders a team's ability to compete in either the short or long-term, and 3) is brought to the Commissioner's attention promptly.

== Rules Board ==
Before the beginning of the season, the Commissioner will appoint three GMs and two alternates to the Rules Board, which is charged with resolving disputes between teams and ambiguities in the LDB Rules. Co-GMs may not both service on the Board. Board members that are interested parties in a dispute over the rules must recuse themselves from deciding such disputes. Board members with the appearance of being interested parties may recuse themselves at their discretion.

When such a dispute arises, a team requesting a ruling should present the question to the League, and the Rules Board will craft a resolution within a reasonable time.

When drafting a decision, the Rules Board should consider the goal of these Rules: to mirror the decisions faced by Major League Baseball teams while recognizing the needs of a fantasy baseball league. Where emails exchanged among the league demonstrate a consensus as to purpose behind a specific Rule or set of Rules, that should be considered in interpreting the Rules. If the explicit text of a Rule can only be read in one way, it should be read accordingly; any mid-season change to an unambiguous Rule should come by league vote. If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

== Contingencies ==

=== Data Loss, Unavailability, and Inaccuracy ===
Given the complexity of LDB and the fact that CBS cannot completely accommodate all of the nuances of the game, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data loss, unavailability, and inaccuracy. When such a case arises, the Commissioner will fashion a fix that he feels best furthers the intent of these Rules and the spirit of the league. The Commissioner may allow the Rules Board to decide how to address such a situation. See [[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].

=== Incapacitated GMs ===
Should a GM become incapacitated, unable, or unwilling to manage his or her team, the team will be taken under receivership by the league. During receivership, the league shall collectively manage the team so as to maintain competitive balance within the league. The Commissioner will announce the means by which such a team will be collectively managed.

In the case of an incapacitated GM or GM unable to manage his or her team, if that GM has any chance of regaining the ability to manage within six months or by the next first of March, whichever is longer, the team shall remain in receivership for that period of time. However, if a GM is definitely unable to return, the Commissioner may turn over the team to a new GM as he sees fit.

In the case of a GM unwilling to manage his or her team, the team remains in receivership for as long as the Commissioner sees fit, until it is turned over to a new GM.<ref>Matt McQueeney was unavailable for comment.</ref>

<references/>

Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies

2016-02-15T06:15:46Z

198.8.80.86:

== Rule Changes ==

=== Offseason Rule Changes ===
Offseason rule changes are proposed, debated, and voted on as a package in one streamlined rulemaking process during the offseason. The manner in which such process takes place is prescribed by the Commissioner. Offseason rule changes may be proposed to the league by any GM and are adopted by a majority of teams voting for or against such changes. At the conclusion of the official rulemaking process, the Commissioner may also announce subsequent rulemaking processes, as necessary, in the offseason.

===Commissioner Relief===
The Commissioner may provide relief to teams in situations where a roster mistake or misunderstanding of the Rules: 1) has no impact on the outcome of any LDB matchups, 2) severely hinders a team's ability to compete in either the short or long-term, and 3) is brought to the Commissioner's attention promptly.

=== In-season Rule Changes ===
In-season rule changes are strongly disfavored, but may be instituted so long as no team objects. However, this requirement does not apply in the case of ambiguity, where the [[#Rules Board|Rules Board will craft a rule]].

=== Decisions Crafted by the Rules Board ===
Decisions crafted by the Rules Board due to ambiguity are automatically incorporated into the Rules, whether they occur during the season or in the offseason.

== Rules Board ==
Before the beginning of the season, the Commissioner will appoint three GMs and two alternates to the Rules Board, which is charged with resolving disputes between teams and ambiguities in the LDB Rules. Co-GMs may not both service on the Board. Board members that are interested parties in a dispute over the rules must recuse themselves from deciding such disputes. Board members with the appearance of being interested parties may recuse themselves at their discretion.

When such a dispute arises, a team requesting a ruling should present the question to the League, and the Rules Board will craft a resolution within a reasonable time.

When drafting a decision, the Rules Board should consider the goal of these Rules: to mirror the decisions faced by Major League Baseball teams while recognizing the needs of a fantasy baseball league. Where emails exchanged among the league demonstrate a consensus as to purpose behind a specific Rule or set of Rules, that should be considered in interpreting the Rules. If the explicit text of a Rule can only be read in one way, it should be read accordingly; any mid-season change to an unambiguous Rule should come by league vote. If the Rules are ambiguous or do not address an issue, the Board should craft a rule designed to best fulfill the goals and intent of the league, but should be mindful of the need to avoid harming or benefiting any individual team or subset of teams that has relied on a valid interpretation of the text of the Rules or would otherwise be affected in a way distinct from the rest of the league. Above all, the Board should be guided by common sense and its understanding of what makes LDB the most functional and the most fun, rather than legalistic or formalistic nuances.

== Contingencies ==

=== Data Loss, Unavailability, and Inaccuracy ===
Given the complexity of LDB and the fact that CBS cannot completely accommodate all of the nuances of the game, owners should expect some reasonable low level of data loss, unavailability, and inaccuracy. When such a case arises, the Commissioner will fashion a fix that he feels best furthers the intent of these Rules and the spirit of the league. The Commissioner may allow the Rules Board to decide how to address such a situation. See [[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].

=== Incapacitated GMs ===
Should a GM become incapacitated, unable, or unwilling to manage his or her team, the team will be taken under receivership by the league. During receivership, the league shall collectively manage the team so as to maintain competitive balance within the league. The Commissioner will announce the means by which such a team will be collectively managed.

In the case of an incapacitated GM or GM unable to manage his or her team, if that GM has any chance of regaining the ability to manage within six months or by the next first of March, whichever is longer, the team shall remain in receivership for that period of time. However, if a GM is definitely unable to return, the Commissioner may turn over the team to a new GM as he sees fit.

In the case of a GM unwilling to manage his or her team, the team remains in receivership for as long as the Commissioner sees fit, until it is turned over to a new GM.<ref>Matt McQueeney was unavailable for comment.</ref>

<references/>

Lucid Dream Baseball League Rules

2016-02-15T06:14:06Z

198.8.80.86: /* Legacy Rules and Rules Board Decisions */

{| style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; border:0;"
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2007.jpg|border|150px|2007 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2008.jpg|border|150px|2008 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2010.jpg|border|150px|2010 Draft]]
|-
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2011.jpg|border|150px|2011 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|[[File:Draft 2012.jpg|border|150px|2012 Draft]]
| valign="middle"|
|-
| valign="center" align="center" colspan="3"| A study in technological advances of cell phone cameras.
|}Lucid Dream Baseball (LDB) is a fantasy baseball league designed to mirror owning and managing a Major League Baseball franchise as nearly as possible. LDB principally accomplishes this two ways: (1) providing each league member deep organizational tiers that allow all types of players, from marquee superstars to young prospects and (2) calculating player performance from statistics that better measure player performance than traditional fantasy baseball systems. LDB also offers other features that better simulate team management than traditional fantasy baseball systems, including a yearly budget, trades that involve assets other than players, rules for internal team management that mirror MLB, among others.

Each LDB league member will be the GM of his or her own franchise, in complete control of team payroll, roster composition, game lineups, and management of the farm system.<ref>However, a GM may opt to appoint a co-manager. Co-managed teams have one vote on trade vetoes, rule changes, etc.</ref> Financial constraints have been designed to resemble those of the top-tier of MLB organizations, and GMs will have the ability to engage in realistic transactions and roster moves to put their teams in the best position to win. Given the unique features LDB offers, LDB GMs have a higher responsibility to manage their team than they would in an average fantasy league.<ref>[[Legacy_Rules_and_Rules_Board_Reporter#In_re_Robinson_Cano.27s_Contract_Status.2C_2012_LDB_1_.28Feb._16.2C_2012.29|In re Robinson Cano's Contract Status, 2012 LDB 1 (Feb. 16, 2012)]].</ref>
__NOTOC__
==[[Organizational Structure]]==
* [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]]
* [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]]

==[[Finances]]==
* [[Finances#Yearly Budget|Yearly Budget]]
* [[Finances#Luxury Tax|Luxury Tax]]
* [[Finances#Payroll|Payroll]]

==[[Keepers and Drafts]]==
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Keepers|Keepers]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AA Draft|AA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#AAA Draft|AAA Draft]]
* [[Keepers and Drafts#Rule V Draft|Rule V Draft]]

==[[The Game]]==
* [[The Game#Schedule|Schedule]]
* [[The Game#Scoring|Scoring]]
* [[The Game#Roster Requirements|Roster Requirements]]
* [[The Game#McQueeney Performance Penalties|McQueeney Performance Penalties]]
* [[The Game#All-star Break|All-star Break]]
* [[The Game#Playoffs|Playoffs]]

==[[Internal Transactions]]==
* [[Internal Transactions#Disabled List Transactions|Disabled List Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AAA Transactions|AAA Transactions]]
* [[Internal Transactions#AA Transactions|AA Transactions]]

==[[External Transactions]]==
* [[External Transactions#Designation for Assignment|Designation for Assignment]]
* [[External Transactions#Mid-Season Free Agents|Mid-Season Free Agents]]
* [[External Transactions#Waiver Claims|Waiver Claims]]
* [[External Transactions#Trades|Trades]]

==[[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies]]==
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rule Changes|Rule Changes]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Rules Board|Rules Board]]
* [[Rule Changes, Disputes, and Contingencies#Contingencies|Contingencies]]

==[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zv1CQUTWkl3Limne9-pJbF_e8yW41Bl1CqWE1ZDktYg/edit?usp=sharing Future Rule Changes]==

==[[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter]]==
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#Legacy Rules|Legacy Rules]]
* [[Legacy Rules and Rules Board Reporter#LDB Rules Board Reporter|LDB Rules Board Reporter]]

<references/>

Keepers and Drafts

2016-02-15T06:13:06Z

198.8.80.86: /* AA Draft */

== Keepers ==

=== Majors and AAA Players ===
In the off-season, GMs will be able to designate five players on their [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors]] and [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] rosters as keepers. Only players signed to long-term deals (contract status of K1/2/3) are eligible to be kept. These players are retained for the next year at their current salary: auction price, less a 10% signing bonus. However, no player can be paid less than the [[Finances#Payroll|league minimum]]). A player may be kept twice for a total of three seasons with a team, and then they become a [[#Restricted Free Agents|restricted free agent]].

==== Restricted Free Agents ====
After players have served three seasons under a contract, they are restricted free agents (RFAs). RFAs are up for auction during the following [[#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]]. However, the GM owning RFA rights has the option to match the winning bid for that player. The team with RFA rights is generally the previous owner, unless the RFA rights were previously [[External Transactions#Trades|traded]] to another team.

====Hometown Heroes====
Mid-season free agents are automatically free agents after the season ends. However, each team will be allowed to designate one of its mid-season free agents as its "hometown hero" (HTH). K-, H-, S-, RFA, and NG waiver pickups are not eligible; the player must clear waivers if he was on one of these contracts. The HTH must be a player who logged non-September call-up time in the Majors and is no longer rookie-eligible. The HTH must also have accrued positive fantasy statistics for the team on the active roster. The HTH gets a one-year contract extension at six million dollars, or two million for RPs. The HTH contract cannot be extended beyond that one year. To qualify as a Relief Pitcher, a player must have pitched the majority of innings in the prior season as a reliever.

=== Homegrown and Super-twos ===

Homegrown players are players drafted into [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] (and possibly promoted). Homegrown players do not count against the [[#Majors and AAA Players|Majors/AAA keeper total]]. After AA players' promotion to AAA or the Majors, they are subject to the following salary schedule:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="2" | Homegrown Salary Structure
|-
| Year 1
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 2
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 3
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
|}

If a homegrown player is traded, they remain on the same salary structure when they join their new team, unless released and not claimed on waivers.

Teams may promote a homegrown player in the second half of a the LDB season (after week 10's final roster lock) without starting the four-year clock on their homegrown status. These players are "super-twos" and are treated exactly as homegrown players for keeper purposes, but they follow an accelerated salary promotion scale:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
|-
! colspan="3" | Super-two Salary Structure
|-
| Salary Year
| Pre-2014 Promotion
| Current
|-
| Year 0 (promotion year)
| $0.5 million
| $0.5 million
|-
| Year 1
| $1.0 million
| $1.0 million
|-
| Year 2
| $2.0 million
| $1.5 million
|-
| Year 3
| $4.0 million
| $4.0 million
|-
| Year 4
| $4.0 million
| $7.5 million
|}

Teams may decide upon promotion whether they want they player to use up a year of eligibility or to be a super-two at promotion time through notice to the Commissioner.

== AA Draft ==

The first phase of a season's draft will be the AA Draft, the only means for adding to a team's [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA Roster]] besides trades. Two years prior to the draft, each team will be given three or four AA draft picks, depending on the availability of prospects, as determined by the Commissioner. These draft picks are tradable. The Commissioner may award new picks at his discretion to teams inherited by a new GM that sold off an abundance of prospects and AA draft picks during the season prior.

To draft a player in the AA Draft, the player must be MLB rookie-eligible (i.e., less than 131 AB or 50 IP, not counting September call-up experience).

The AA Draft will be held prior to a new season, as the Commissioner sees fit, subject to the requirements herein. For teams that do not make playoffs, the AA draft order will be in ascending order by wins from the previous season. Wins are used rather than the winning percentage to remove any advantage from intentionally forfeiting games by missing the innings requirement. The order for teams missing playoffs is then followed by teams making playoff appearances in ascending order of finishing places. The draft position of a traded draft pick corresponds to the original owner, not the owner at the time of the AA Draft.

=== Logistics and Requirements ===

Once a team is on the clock and has not picked for one full day (24 hours), that team will incur a $2 million fine, and the draft may continue on as if he has picked. Such a team may jump back in and pick at any time. A team may assign another GM to make the pick on its behalf.

If the draft is not complete by 10 PM EST on the Friday prior to the auction, the three teams who have caused the longest delay between picks, counting only the hours between noon and 10 PM EST, will each be fined $1 million for each pick remaining in the draft. The delay must be at least 3 hours to qualify for this fine. In this situation the AA draft will be completed on the morning of the auction before the auction commences.

== Majors Draft ==

[[File:Place_your_bids.jpg|border|right|250px|]]After the AA Draft, LDB will draft [[Organizational Structure#Majors|Majors players]]. The draft will be in an auction format. The Majors draft will take place at a time established by the Commissioner.

At the draft, teams will nominate players in an order established by the Commissioner. A nominating team will name the player and an opening bid for that player. The bid must be at least the minimum league salary. Other owners may choose to raise the bid on that player. The team that turns in the highest bid will be awarded the player.

Bidding prices are subject to these increments:
* $0.5 million - $9.5 million: $0.5 million
* More than $9.5 million: $1 million

In the event of a tie, deference is afforded to bidders drafting remotely. In the event the tie is between two remote or two present GMs, the tiebreaker will go to the team that comes first in the nomination order after the GM who nominated the player. If a GM is involved in a tiebreaker, they will win the next tiebreaker he is involved with.

If a player being drafted is an RFA, the team holding RFA rights may match the final bid once it is in and re-sign the player for a fourth year.

GMs may draft until: (1) they have Majors no more roster space, (2) run out of money, or (3) pass their turn to nominate a player. The Majors draft ends when no GM can make a new nomination.

===Blind Auction Trial for 2015===
During the third, tenth, and thirteenth round, we will conduct those auctions by blind bidding. Teams take turns nominating players as they do above. Nominating a player requires you to post at least a minimum salary bid. Teams then simultaneously make a single bid. The highest bid wins the player. Ties are resolved by: (1) deferral, (2) an open "bidding war" process that resembles our current open auction, or (3) draft nomination order in the event that nobody defers or offers a higher bid.

== AAA Draft ==

The final component of a season's draft is the AAA Draft. Every [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA player]] chosen in the AAA draft receives the league minimum salary. Up to three AAA draftees may be given non-guaranteed (NG) contracts, which the drafting team must declare as the player is drafted. See [[External Transactions]] for the benefits and limitations of NG contracts.

== Rule V Draft ==

In order to dissuade teams from retaining players in AA that are performing well in MLB, LDB will hold an MLB Rule V-style draft during each year's All-star Break. In that draft, teams may poach such players from other teams farm systems. To be eligible for the Rule V Draft, a player must:
* Currently be in LDB AA,
* Not be a team's designated protected player,
* Be age 23 or above as of draft day (birthday on draft day counts),
* Have accumulated 900 PA, 225 IP, or 50 pitching appearances over his career, and
* Currently be on an MLB team's 25 man roster.

The Rule V draft will take place over the All-star Break each season. During that week, and before the draft begins, teams will be afforded an opportunity to announce one protected player that cannot be drafted and to promote AA players subject to the Rule V draft before the draft. A player may not be designated as a "protected player" in consecutive years. The draft will last until each team passes. Once a team passes, the team may still participate further in the draft. There are no restrictions on the number of players one team may take or have taken from them. The draft order will be non-serpentine, with the order being in reverse order of the then-current standings at the close of the LDB week preceding the all-star game. The commissioner will conduct the Rule V Draft via means he or she deems most efficient (e.g., email, website, or conference call).

Teams drafting players by Rule V will be required to keep them on their LDB Majors roster for the following one and a half seasons. Teams may place Rule V draftees on the DL. However, spending a half season (10 weeks, aggregated over all DL stints), does not count toward the one and a half seasons. Owners will not be required to include Rule V draftees on their playoff roster.

Rule V draftees may be traded. Traded Rule V draftees or draftees claimed off of waivers will remain under the same restrictions for teams acquiring them.

If a team is unable to maintain the player in LDB Majors or the DL and cannot move him by trade, the player must be offered back to his original team for $0.2 million. If the original team declines to take the player, he enters general waivers. When an original owner acquires a player back before they have cleared waivers, the original team is under Rule V restrictions described here.

Teams may not change their protected player once the draft begins without either promoting that player or subjecting him to waivers.

<references/>

The Game

2016-02-15T06:07:41Z

198.8.80.86: /* Playoff Rosters */

LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. During the regular season, each team will play another team for one week at a time (Monday to Sunday)<ref>With the exception of the first and eleventh weeks, which may extend beyond seven days.</ref> for a total of 20 weeks, with each statistical category representing one game, meaning 14 games are in play each week. After the regular season, top-performing teams advance to the playoffs.

== Schedule ==
Scheduling will be announced by the Commissioner before the [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]] each year. Schedules are unbalanced, meaning that teams will play teams within their league more often than teams outside their league. Each team will play their divisional opponents twice each, and each team from the other division once. The only exception to this will be the team’s designated "natural rival." Each team will be paired randomly with one team from the other division, and will play that team twice instead of once.

== Scoring ==
Lucid Dream Baseball scores the ten active batters and up to eleven active pitchers each day on the following statistics:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="500"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Scoring
|-
! width="200" | Batters
! Pitchers
|-
| On-Base Percentage (OBP)
| Net Quality Wins: NQW = 4QS + W - L - 2GS
|-
| On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage: OPS = OBP + SLG
| Adjusted WHIP: aWHIP = (H + BB + HBP)/INN
|-
| Runs Scored (R)
| STARR: (RIP+3*SV+3*HLD-8*BS-8*RL)/4
|-
| Adjusted Runs Batted In: aRBI = RBI - GIDP
| Home Runs Allowed (HRA)
|-
| Home Runs (HR)
| Pitcher Strikeouts (K)
|-
| Adjusted Stolen Bases: ASB = SB - CS/2
| Earned Run Average (ERA)
|}

Just as in baseball, there can be no ties. If a statistical category ends in a tie at the conclusion of the week, the home team will win all such categories.

===Rain Delay Relief===
In the event of a rain delay, if the starting pitcher of such a game has ERA of 4.50 or less in the innings he has pitched in that game, he will receive a 0 in NQW instead of a -2.

The rule will apply in the following situations:

*If a starting pitcher, who has pitched less than 6 innings in a game, is removed from a game immediately following a weather delay; or
*If a starting pitcher does not pitch a full 6 innings because a game is deemed officially completed before the completion of the 6th inning due to a rainout or other weather-related game shortening.

This rule will be self-enforced. Teams will have to identify situations where this has occurred on their teams and notify the Commissioner within seven days of the occurrence. The Commissioner will then make the necessary scoring changes.

== Roster Requirements ==
Each week, each team must meet the league minimum innings pitched requirement (IP) of 44 innings per week. Additionally, teams must have an eligible player in each positional roster spot (but not designated hitters) each day. If a team fails to meet these minimum requirements, the following penalties are applied:

=== Batting and Fielding Penalties ===
For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

=== Pitching Penalties ===
If a team fails to reach the required 44 innings pitched in a given week, that team will automatically lose the following categories: NQS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and STARR. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,<ref>Fuck-ups</ref>. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be no financial penalty. After the first instance of missed innings, each additional week a team misses innings will cost that team's owner $1 million, to be levied immediately upon the completion of the LDB Championship Series for that season.

== McQueeney Performance Penalties <ref>Known as "McQueeneys"</ref>==
The McQueeney Performance Penalty deducts LDB cash from a team's subsequent yearly budget when that team finishes the regular season with a sub-.400 winning percentage (including any FU losses) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

:LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-WL%)), rounded to the nearest half million

Additionally:

*The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
*The Commissioner may, at his discretion, grant an exemption from the penalties for any team that actively and competently manages its roster throughout the season and does not make a concerted effort to sell players on its active major league roster for future value (i.e., draft picks, cash, or AA players).

For examples, a team with a .380 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-38%)) = LDB$3 million; a team with a .333 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$10 million; and a team with a .200 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$30 million.

== All-star Break ==
LDB will not hold regular games during the week of the MLB All-star Game. That week, at the option of the Commissioner, LDB may either: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and/or (2) fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week, if feasible.

In the event LDB holds an All-star Game, such game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued that week. The Commissioner will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. The division that wins the LDB All-star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series.

== Playoffs ==

=== Advancing to the Playoffs ===
The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Three teams from each division make the playoffs for a total of six total playoff teams. The team with the best record in each division receives a first-round bye while the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best records in each division play each other in the first round. The higher seeded team in each round is the home team. The home team in the championship series (the "Lucid Dream Series") is determined by the winner of the [[#All-star_Break|All-star Game]]. The tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs, determine seeding, and home field advantage in the event no LDB All-star Game takes place are as follows:

# Overall Points
# Head-to-head Record
# Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
# Intra-division Record
# Overall Roto Performance
# Commissioner’s Coin Flip (with witnesses)

In case three teams are tied in overall points, a three team head-to-head tiebreaker is resolved by independent pairwise comparisons. For example:

:Consider 3 teams: A, B, and C:
:* A beat B in Week 1, 9-5
:* A beat C in Week 2, 10-4
:* B beat A in Week 3, 13-1
:* B tied C in Week 4, 7-7
:* B beat C in Week 5, 8-6
:* C beat A in Week 6, 11-3

:Therefore, head-to-head:
:A vs. B = (9+1) vs. (5+13) = 10 vs. 18.
:So B > A

:A vs. C = (10+3) vs. (4+11) = 13 vs. 15.
:So C > A

:B vs. C = (7+8) vs (7+6) = 15 vs. 13
:So B > C

:Therefore, B>C>A, and so B and C make the playoffs. Theoretically, if A = C in head-to-head, we would have to go to another tiebreaker, in this case performance vs. the rest of their division.

=== Playoff Rosters ===
Once playoffs rosters lock for the first time, no more player adds or drops are permitted during playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 25 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted or demoted to/from [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] or [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] until the following Monday. However, position players on the DL may be added to the 25-man roster after rosters lock if there is a space reserved for their potential activation. Any veteran player activated from the DL during a playoff series and not provided a spot on the 25-man roster may sit on a team's bench but not be used on an active roster during the series.

Positional players within the 25-man roster may be freely subbed in and out of slots during playoffs.

Each playoff team must start exactly five pitchers in each round of the playoffs: three starting pitchers, one relief pitcher and one flex (starter or reliever). Pitchers must remain active the entire week and cannot be benched. Teams may select pitchers on the DL as one of their five pitchers, but must also declare alternate, healthy pitchers in case such pitchers on the DL do not make a start in a game during that week. Teams may also, at their option, designate alternate pitchers for pitchers that are not on the DL.

=== Playoff Scoring ===

Pitching stats for the playoff week are as follows: ERA, WHIP, NQW/GS, K/9, HR/9, and STARR.

In the event of a playoff tie in points, such games will be decided by a cumulative measure for each stat category. Specifically: at the end of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each category. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of the season.

:Example
:Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the season, each team has 20 different aSB scores, for 280 data points total. Let's assume that out of the 280 observations of aSB, the mean is 2.5 and the standard deviation is 0.75.

:Now let's say that Team A has 4 aSB and Team B has 2. Team A would get +2 in tiebreaker scoring (because it's 2 Std Devs over the mean) while Team B would be given -0.67 (because it's 2/3 Std Devs. below the mean).

:We repeat this for all stats and see who has the higher total.

:Weights will be calculated annually at the conclusion of the regular season, prior to the conclusion of the first week's playoff matchups. As a proof of concept, we'll calculate the first-half weights at the all-star break to show what the tiebreakers would be if the season ended then (and to show that this is simpler in practice than it sounds in the abstract). We'll also create a plug-and-play google spreadsheet that lets you input the current score of your matchup and automatically calculate who holds the tiebreaker.

=== The McQueeney Cup ===
LDB will award the McQueeney Cup each season to the non-playoff team that wins the McQueeney Cup bracket, which will be played over three rounds parallel to the LDB playoffs, with Union and Federal ladders composed of each divisions' respective four non-playoff teams, seeded in order of regular season finish, with the last round including the Union and Federal finalists. The winner of the McQueeney Cup will receive a sandwich round pick between the first and second round of the amateur draft. In all other respects, McQueeney Cup games are decided as a regular playoff game.

<references/>

The Game

2016-02-15T06:02:50Z

198.8.80.86: /* Scoring */

LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. During the regular season, each team will play another team for one week at a time (Monday to Sunday)<ref>With the exception of the first and eleventh weeks, which may extend beyond seven days.</ref> for a total of 20 weeks, with each statistical category representing one game, meaning 14 games are in play each week. After the regular season, top-performing teams advance to the playoffs.

== Schedule ==
Scheduling will be announced by the Commissioner before the [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]] each year. Schedules are unbalanced, meaning that teams will play teams within their league more often than teams outside their league. Each team will play their divisional opponents twice each, and each team from the other division once. The only exception to this will be the team’s designated "natural rival." Each team will be paired randomly with one team from the other division, and will play that team twice instead of once.

== Scoring ==
Lucid Dream Baseball scores the ten active batters and up to eleven active pitchers each day on the following statistics:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="500"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Scoring
|-
! width="200" | Batters
! Pitchers
|-
| On-Base Percentage (OBP)
| Net Quality Wins: NQW = 4QS + W - L - 2GS
|-
| On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage: OPS = OBP + SLG
| Adjusted WHIP: aWHIP = (H + BB + HBP)/INN
|-
| Runs Scored (R)
| STARR: (RIP+3*SV+3*HLD-8*BS-8*RL)/4
|-
| Adjusted Runs Batted In: aRBI = RBI - GIDP
| Home Runs Allowed (HRA)
|-
| Home Runs (HR)
| Pitcher Strikeouts (K)
|-
| Adjusted Stolen Bases: ASB = SB - CS/2
| Earned Run Average (ERA)
|}

Just as in baseball, there can be no ties. If a statistical category ends in a tie at the conclusion of the week, the home team will win all such categories.

===Rain Delay Relief===
In the event of a rain delay, if the starting pitcher of such a game has ERA of 4.50 or less in the innings he has pitched in that game, he will receive a 0 in NQW instead of a -2.

The rule will apply in the following situations:

*If a starting pitcher, who has pitched less than 6 innings in a game, is removed from a game immediately following a weather delay; or
*If a starting pitcher does not pitch a full 6 innings because a game is deemed officially completed before the completion of the 6th inning due to a rainout or other weather-related game shortening.

This rule will be self-enforced. Teams will have to identify situations where this has occurred on their teams and notify the Commissioner within seven days of the occurrence. The Commissioner will then make the necessary scoring changes.

== Roster Requirements ==
Each week, each team must meet the league minimum innings pitched requirement (IP) of 44 innings per week. Additionally, teams must have an eligible player in each positional roster spot (but not designated hitters) each day. If a team fails to meet these minimum requirements, the following penalties are applied:

=== Batting and Fielding Penalties ===
For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

=== Pitching Penalties ===
If a team fails to reach the required 44 innings pitched in a given week, that team will automatically lose the following categories: NQS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and STARR. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,<ref>Fuck-ups</ref>. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be no financial penalty. After the first instance of missed innings, each additional week a team misses innings will cost that team's owner $1 million, to be levied immediately upon the completion of the LDB Championship Series for that season.

== McQueeney Performance Penalties <ref>Known as "McQueeneys"</ref>==
The McQueeney Performance Penalty deducts LDB cash from a team's subsequent yearly budget when that team finishes the regular season with a sub-.400 winning percentage (including any FU losses) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

:LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-WL%)), rounded to the nearest half million

Additionally:

*The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
*The Commissioner may, at his discretion, grant an exemption from the penalties for any team that actively and competently manages its roster throughout the season and does not make a concerted effort to sell players on its active major league roster for future value (i.e., draft picks, cash, or AA players).

For examples, a team with a .380 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-38%)) = LDB$3 million; a team with a .333 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$10 million; and a team with a .200 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$30 million.

== All-star Break ==
LDB will not hold regular games during the week of the MLB All-star Game. That week, at the option of the Commissioner, LDB may either: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and/or (2) fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week, if feasible.

In the event LDB holds an All-star Game, such game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued that week. The Commissioner will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. The division that wins the LDB All-star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series.

== Playoffs ==

=== Advancing to the Playoffs ===
The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Three teams from each division make the playoffs for a total of six total playoff teams. The team with the best record in each division receives a first-round bye while the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best records in each division play each other in the first round. The higher seeded team in each round is the home team. The home team in the championship series (the "Lucid Dream Series") is determined by the winner of the [[#All-star_Break|All-star Game]]. The tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs, determine seeding, and home field advantage in the event no LDB All-star Game takes place are as follows:

# Overall Points
# Head-to-head Record
# Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
# Intra-division Record
# Overall Roto Performance
# Commissioner’s Coin Flip (with witnesses)

In case three teams are tied in overall points, a three team head-to-head tiebreaker is resolved by independent pairwise comparisons. For example:

:Consider 3 teams: A, B, and C:
:* A beat B in Week 1, 9-5
:* A beat C in Week 2, 10-4
:* B beat A in Week 3, 13-1
:* B tied C in Week 4, 7-7
:* B beat C in Week 5, 8-6
:* C beat A in Week 6, 11-3

:Therefore, head-to-head:
:A vs. B = (9+1) vs. (5+13) = 10 vs. 18.
:So B > A

:A vs. C = (10+3) vs. (4+11) = 13 vs. 15.
:So C > A

:B vs. C = (7+8) vs (7+6) = 15 vs. 13
:So B > C

:Therefore, B>C>A, and so B and C make the playoffs. Theoretically, if A = C in head-to-head, we would have to go to another tiebreaker, in this case performance vs. the rest of their division.

=== Playoff Rosters ===
Once playoffs rosters lock for the first time, no more player adds or drops are permitted during playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 25 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted or demoted to/from [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] or [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] until the following Monday.

Each playoff team must start exactly five pitchers in each round of the playoffs: three starting pitchers, one relief pitcher and one flex (starter or reliever). Pitchers must remain active the entire week and cannot be benched. Teams may select pitchers on the DL as one of their five pitchers, but must also declare alternate, healthy pitchers in case such pitchers on the DL do not make a start in a game during that week. Teams may also, at their option, designate alternate pitchers for pitchers that are not on the DL.

=== Playoff Scoring ===

Pitching stats for the playoff week are as follows: ERA, WHIP, NQW/GS, K/9, HR/9, and STARR.

In the event of a playoff tie in points, such games will be decided by a cumulative measure for each stat category. Specifically: at the end of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each category. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of the season.

:Example
:Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the season, each team has 20 different aSB scores, for 280 data points total. Let's assume that out of the 280 observations of aSB, the mean is 2.5 and the standard deviation is 0.75.

:Now let's say that Team A has 4 aSB and Team B has 2. Team A would get +2 in tiebreaker scoring (because it's 2 Std Devs over the mean) while Team B would be given -0.67 (because it's 2/3 Std Devs. below the mean).

:We repeat this for all stats and see who has the higher total.

:Weights will be calculated annually at the conclusion of the regular season, prior to the conclusion of the first week's playoff matchups. As a proof of concept, we'll calculate the first-half weights at the all-star break to show what the tiebreakers would be if the season ended then (and to show that this is simpler in practice than it sounds in the abstract). We'll also create a plug-and-play google spreadsheet that lets you input the current score of your matchup and automatically calculate who holds the tiebreaker.

=== The McQueeney Cup ===
LDB will award the McQueeney Cup each season to the non-playoff team that wins the McQueeney Cup bracket, which will be played over three rounds parallel to the LDB playoffs, with Union and Federal ladders composed of each divisions' respective four non-playoff teams, seeded in order of regular season finish, with the last round including the Union and Federal finalists. The winner of the McQueeney Cup will receive a sandwich round pick between the first and second round of the amateur draft. In all other respects, McQueeney Cup games are decided as a regular playoff game.

<references/>

The Game

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LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. During the regular season, each team will play another team for one week at a time (Monday to Sunday)<ref>With the exception of the first and eleventh weeks, which may extend beyond seven days.</ref> for a total of 20 weeks, with each statistical category representing one game, meaning 14 games are in play each week. After the regular season, top-performing teams advance to the playoffs.

== Schedule ==
Scheduling will be announced by the Commissioner before the [[Keepers and Drafts#Majors Draft|Majors Draft]] each year. Schedules are unbalanced, meaning that teams will play teams within their league more often than teams outside their league. Each team will play their divisional opponents twice each, and each team from the other division once. The only exception to this will be the team’s designated "natural rival." Each team will be paired randomly with one team from the other division, and will play that team twice instead of once.

== Scoring ==
Lucid Dream Baseball scores the ten active batters and up to eleven active pitchers each day on the following statistics:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" width="500"
|-
! colspan="2" | LDB Scoring
|-
! width="200" | Batters
! Pitchers
|-
| On-Base Percentage (OBP)
| Net Quality Wins: NQW = 4QS + W - L - 2GS
|-
| On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage: OPS = OBP + SLG
| Adjusted WHIP: aWHIP = (H + BB + HBP)/INN
|-
| Runs Scored (R)
| STARR: RIP+3*SV+3*HLD-8*BS-8*RL
|-
| Adjusted Runs Batted In: aRBI = RBI - GIDP
| Home Runs Allowed (HRA)
|-
| Home Runs (HR)
| Pitcher Strikeouts (K)
|-
| Adjusted Stolen Bases: ASB = SB - CS/2
| Earned Run Average (ERA)
|}

Just as in baseball, there can be no ties. If a statistical category ends in a tie at the conclusion of the week, the home team will win all such categories.

===Rain Delay Relief===
In the event of a rain delay, if the starting pitcher of such a game has ERA of 4.50 or less in the innings he has pitched in that game, he will receive a 0 in NQW instead of a -2.

The rule will apply in the following situations:

*If a starting pitcher, who has pitched less than 6 innings in a game, is removed from a game immediately following a weather delay; or
*If a starting pitcher does not pitch a full 6 innings because a game is deemed officially completed before the completion of the 6th inning due to a rainout or other weather-related game shortening.

This rule will be self-enforced. Teams will have to identify situations where this has occurred on their teams and notify the Commissioner within seven days of the occurrence. The Commissioner will then make the necessary scoring changes.

== Roster Requirements ==
Each week, each team must meet the league minimum innings pitched requirement (IP) of 44 innings per week. Additionally, teams must have an eligible player in each positional roster spot (but not designated hitters) each day. If a team fails to meet these minimum requirements, the following penalties are applied:

=== Batting and Fielding Penalties ===
For every batter missing from a team's lineup on a game day, that team receives one "AAA start" for each missing player, which is 0H, 5 AB with 2 GIDP. After three separate days of batting roster violations, the team is penalized $0.5 million per player per day. The ﬁnes will be deducted from the following season’s payroll. Fines are deducted after luxury tax calculations are made.

=== Pitching Penalties ===
If a team fails to reach the required 44 innings pitched in a given week, that team will automatically lose the following categories: NQS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and STARR. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,<ref>Fuck-ups</ref>. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be no financial penalty. After the first instance of missed innings, each additional week a team misses innings will cost that team's owner $1 million, to be levied immediately upon the completion of the LDB Championship Series for that season.

== McQueeney Performance Penalties <ref>Known as "McQueeneys"</ref>==
The McQueeney Performance Penalty deducts LDB cash from a team's subsequent yearly budget when that team finishes the regular season with a sub-.400 winning percentage (including any FU losses) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

:LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-WL%)), rounded to the nearest half million

Additionally:

*The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
*The Commissioner may, at his discretion, grant an exemption from the penalties for any team that actively and competently manages its roster throughout the season and does not make a concerted effort to sell players on its active major league roster for future value (i.e., draft picks, cash, or AA players).

For examples, a team with a .380 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$1.5 million * (100(40%-38%)) = LDB$3 million; a team with a .333 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$10 million; and a team with a .200 winning percentage would incur a penalty of LDB$30 million.

== All-star Break ==
LDB will not hold regular games during the week of the MLB All-star Game. That week, at the option of the Commissioner, LDB may either: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and/or (2) fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week, if feasible.

In the event LDB holds an All-star Game, such game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued that week. The Commissioner will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. The division that wins the LDB All-star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series.

== Playoffs ==

=== Advancing to the Playoffs ===
The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Three teams from each division make the playoffs for a total of six total playoff teams. The team with the best record in each division receives a first-round bye while the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best records in each division play each other in the first round. The higher seeded team in each round is the home team. The home team in the championship series (the "Lucid Dream Series") is determined by the winner of the [[#All-star_Break|All-star Game]]. The tiebreakers to determine which teams make the playoffs, determine seeding, and home field advantage in the event no LDB All-star Game takes place are as follows:

# Overall Points
# Head-to-head Record
# Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
# Intra-division Record
# Overall Roto Performance
# Commissioner’s Coin Flip (with witnesses)

In case three teams are tied in overall points, a three team head-to-head tiebreaker is resolved by independent pairwise comparisons. For example:

:Consider 3 teams: A, B, and C:
:* A beat B in Week 1, 9-5
:* A beat C in Week 2, 10-4
:* B beat A in Week 3, 13-1
:* B tied C in Week 4, 7-7
:* B beat C in Week 5, 8-6
:* C beat A in Week 6, 11-3

:Therefore, head-to-head:
:A vs. B = (9+1) vs. (5+13) = 10 vs. 18.
:So B > A

:A vs. C = (10+3) vs. (4+11) = 13 vs. 15.
:So C > A

:B vs. C = (7+8) vs (7+6) = 15 vs. 13
:So B > C

:Therefore, B>C>A, and so B and C make the playoffs. Theoretically, if A = C in head-to-head, we would have to go to another tiebreaker, in this case performance vs. the rest of their division.

=== Playoff Rosters ===
Once playoffs rosters lock for the first time, no more player adds or drops are permitted during playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 25 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted or demoted to/from [[Organizational Structure#AA|AA]] or [[Organizational Structure#AAA|AAA]] until the following Monday.

Each playoff team must start exactly five pitchers in each round of the playoffs: three starting pitchers, one relief pitcher and one flex (starter or reliever). Pitchers must remain active the entire week and cannot be benched. Teams may select pitchers on the DL as one of their five pitchers, but must also declare alternate, healthy pitchers in case such pitchers on the DL do not make a start in a game during that week. Teams may also, at their option, designate alternate pitchers for pitchers that are not on the DL.

=== Playoff Scoring ===

Pitching stats for the playoff week are as follows: ERA, WHIP, NQW/GS, K/9, HR/9, and STARR.

In the event of a playoff tie in points, such games will be decided by a cumulative measure for each stat category. Specifically: at the end of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each category. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of the season.

:Example
:Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the season, each team has 20 different aSB scores, for 280 data points total. Let's assume that out of the 280 observations of aSB, the mean is 2.5 and the standard deviation is 0.75.

:Now let's say that Team A has 4 aSB and Team B has 2. Team A would get +2 in tiebreaker scoring (because it's 2 Std Devs over the mean) while Team B would be given -0.67 (because it's 2/3 Std Devs. below the mean).

:We repeat this for all stats and see who has the higher total.

:Weights will be calculated annually at the conclusion of the regular season, prior to the conclusion of the first week's playoff matchups. As a proof of concept, we'll calculate the first-half weights at the all-star break to show what the tiebreakers would be if the season ended then (and to show that this is simpler in practice than it sounds in the abstract). We'll also create a plug-and-play google spreadsheet that lets you input the current score of your matchup and automatically calculate who holds the tiebreaker.

=== The McQueeney Cup ===
LDB will award the McQueeney Cup each season to the non-playoff team that wins the McQueeney Cup bracket, which will be played over three rounds parallel to the LDB playoffs, with Union and Federal ladders composed of each divisions' respective four non-playoff teams, seeded in order of regular season finish, with the last round including the Union and Federal finalists. The winner of the McQueeney Cup will receive a sandwich round pick between the first and second round of the amateur draft. In all other respects, McQueeney Cup games are decided as a regular playoff game.

<references/>

External Transactions

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