The Game

LDB is divided into two subsidiary leagues: the Federal League and the Union Association. Each league has two four-team divisions. 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 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(s) before the Majors Draft each year. During the regular season, each team will play the other three teams in their own division twice (6 games), each other team once (12 games), and each team will have two additional non-division intraleague matchups (2 games). Matchups for the extra two intraleague matchups will be determined by the prior season's records. Teams with the two best records in one division in a league will face the teams with the two best records in the other division in that league, and vice versa for the two teams with the worst records their divisions.

The Commissioner(s) will implement "road trips" where teams play out of their divisions multiple weeks in a row. However, road trips may not be so long that they create a competitive imbalance for teams on long away stretches as a result of losing weekly tiebreakers for such periods.

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)	Modified Game Starts (MGS): 3*IP + 2(IP-4) + K - 2H - 4ER - 2(R-ER) - BB
On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS): OBP + SLG	Adjusted WHIP (aWHIP): (H + BB + HBP)/INN
Runs Scored (R)	VIJAY: (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.

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. Teams must accumulate a minimum of 50 plate appearances per week.

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.

Teams that fail to accumulate 50 plate appearances in a week will forfeit all offensive categories in that matchup.

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: MGS, ERA, WHIP, HRA, and VIJAY. These losses will count as losses in the standings and will be known throughout the league as FUs,. In the event two teams playing each other both miss the 44-inning requirement, both will be assigned FUs. Should a team miss the innings requirement once, there will be an increasing penalty scale as follows:

• First infraction: warning
• Second infraction: $1 million fine
• Third infraction: $3 million fine
• Fourth infraction: $5 million fine
• Fifth infraction: loss of team's next AA draft pick in possession at the time of the infraction

Financial penalties will be levied following completion of the next LDB Championship Series, thereby impacting the subsequent year's budget.

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 and excluding any FU wins) in the second half of the regular season. The "McQueeneys" will be assessed according to the following formula:

For a team with x second-half wins, (48-x)*LDB$1.25 million. This formula will be adjusted as appropriate if LDB moves to a schedule that does not include exactly 120 second-half games.

Additionally:

• The McQueeney Penalties shall be capped at a $20M maximum potential fine.
• The Commissioner(s) 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 example, a team with 47 second-half wins would incur a $1.25M penalty, a team with 46 second-half wins would incur a $2.5M penalty, etc. A team with 32 or fewer second-half wins would incur the maximum penalty of $20M.

McQueeney penalties and fines for missed innings belong to owners, not teams. When an owner leaves LDB, her fines go with her. A new owner is not responsible for paying the fines that his team's previous owner has incurred.

However, a new owner can choose to pay his previous owner’s fines and instead opt to be exempt from McQueeney penalties during his first year of ownership. A team who chooses this option must still actively and competently manage his team, however, or else the Commissioner(s) may override the exemption and impose the fines in full or in part at his discretion. Additionally, this exemption is only available in the event a departing owner leaves with an outstanding fine of $5 million or more.

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(s), LDB will: (1) hold an LDB All-star Game and, (2) if easily accomplished, fold any official MLB stats accrued that week into the subsequent week.

The All-star Game will be held between the Federal League and the Union Association and use the official MLB statistics accrued during the week of the MLB All-star Break. The Commissioner(s) will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. All-Star teams can list starting pitcher alternates in case their starters do not pitch at all.

The league that wins the LDB All-Star Game will have home field advantage in the Lucid Dream Series and McQueeney Cup final.

Each league's team will be managed by the owner of the prior season's league champion. The manager will be in charge of conducting the voting for his league's players and tracking their stats. All-Star teams shall consist of a full lineup, three starting pitchers, and two relievers. There will be no alternates or lineup changes; if a player goes on the IL or misses the weekend, their spot remains empty. Every team in the league must have at least one player on the team. The All-Star Game will use regular season categories. The manager must report the final stats on the Monday following the All-star break and should report the daily stats on Saturday and Sunday.

There is no home field advantage in the All-Star Game; category ties are treated as ties. If the final score is tied, tiebreakers will be as follows: HR, aSB, Ka, R, RBI, OPS, VIJAY, OBP, WHIP, ERA, MGS.

The Commissioner(s) has discretion to adjust these rules unilaterally prior to the LDB All-Star Game if he deems it necessary. Changes after the All-Star Game has begun require a majority vote.

Playoffs

Advancing to the Playoffs

The LDB Playoffs occur after the regular season concludes. Eight teams make the playoffs: the four division winners and two wild card teams from each league. The wild card teams from each league first play each other in a wild card round. The winners of the wild card round advance to the Lucid Division series, where they will play the division winner in their respective leagues with the second best league record (that division winner therefore gets a one-round bye). The winner of the Lucid Division Series advances to the Lucid Championship Series, where they face the team with the best record in their league (the league winner therefore gets a double bye). The home team in 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. Head-to-head Record Excluding Tie Wins
4. Wins (excluding tie wins from standings points)
5. Intra-division Record
6. Overall Roto Performance
7. Commissioner(s)’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.

In the event pairwise comparison of head-to-head points is circular, then pairwise comparisons of totals runs scored in head-to-head matchups is the next category used. If this is also circular, then total head-to-head HR then K then aRBI are applied (in that order). If still tied, then tiebreaker is determined by fiat by the LDB Commissioner(s)’s preferred method (rock-paper-scissors suggested but not required).

Playoff Rosters

Once playoff rosters lock for the first time, player adds and drops may only be made by teams that have not been eliminated from their respective post-season brackets, and may only be made after the conclusion of all of each week’s games, but before rosters lock for the first day of the next round (i.e. “between” each round of post-season play). However, in the event a player comes off the IL after rosters lock, there is no roster violation, but the owner must drop a player within 24 hours or prior to the start of their next matchup, whichever comes first.

Playoff rosters contain 26 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. The 26-man playoff consists of: active position players, reserve position players, active pitchers, reserve pitchers, and players potentially activated from the IL. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted from AA until the following Monday. However players on the IL may be added to the 26-man roster after rosters lock if there is a space reserved for their potential activation. For convenience, teams may place any player who is not on their 26-man roster on any minor league roster.

Players within the 26 man roster may be freely subbed in and out during the playoffs. Each playoff team must accumulate at least 30 IP per playoff week or else they will lose MGS, ERA, WHIP, HRA and VIJAY, just as they would in the regular season.

If an owner fails to set a legal playoff roster before roster lock on the first day of a playoff week, all active players will automatically be considered part of the 26 man playoff roster. The remaining spots will be assigned to bench players in the order that they appear in MLB games until a team reaches 26 players.

Teams on bye weeks must abide by the regular season 31-man roster rule. If a player comes off the IL during a bye week that puts a team over the 31-player limit, the owner must drop a player within 24 hours or prior to the start of their next matchup, whichever comes first.

Playoff Scoring

Pitching stats for the playoff week are identical to the regular season's: ERA, aWHIP, MGS, K, HRA and VIJAY.

In the event of a tied category, ties are not awarded to the home team as in the regular season. The team with more wins advances except in situations where there are more ties than wins for either team, in which case a tie results.

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 start of each season, a volunteer must determine the Categorical League Average Performance (CLAP) for each scoring category from the previous season. The CLAP will be determined by the mean and standard deviation for each category over the course of that season. However, such calculations must exclude scoring weeks that are not exactly seven days.

CLAP is the default tiebreaker, but in the event that last year’s CLAP is not prepared by the end of the official rulemaking process in the offseason, the tiebreaker will be ERA, then OPS in the event of an ERA tie, then coin flip in the event of an OPS tie.

Example

Let's use aSB as an example. Over the course of the previous 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 beginning of the regular season.

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.