The Game

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) 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 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:

LDB Scoring
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,. 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

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 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:

1. Overall Points
2. Head-to-head Record
3. Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
4. Intra-division Record
5. Overall Roto Performance
6. 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 AA or 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.