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 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 will implement "road trips" where teams play out of their divisions multiple weeks in a row.

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.

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 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) 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.

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 may override the exemption and impose the fines in full or in part at his discretion.

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 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 will announce the logistics for such a game, and each of the divisions will select and announce players for the game. 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 DL 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, NQW.

The Commissioner 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. 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 playoff rosters lock for the first time, player adds and drops are prohibited until the conclusion of playoffs.

Playoff rosters contain 20 players and lock at the start of each round of the playoffs. The 20-man playoff roster consists of: active position players, reserve position players, active pitchers, and players potentially activated from the DL. Once rosters lock on Monday of each playoff week, players cannot be promoted from AA until the following Monday. However, position players on the DL may be added to the 20-man roster after rosters lock if there is a space reserved for their potential activation.

The 20-man roster has the following requirements and constraints:

Offense

Position players within the 20-man roster may be freely subbed in and out of slots during playoffs.

Pitching

Each playoff team must start five pitchers during playoffs: SP, SP, SP, RP, SP/RP (flex). Starting pitchers must start at least one game for each week they are selected for a playoff roster.

Teams may designate alternate starting pitchers in the event that a rostered starting pitcher does not start any games during the week. If alternates are needed but an owner did not designate sufficient alternates, starts from non-rostered starting pitchers will be used in the order they occurred during the week, until the owner accumulates stats from a number of starters equal to the number of rostered starting pitchers. Pitchers otherwise remain active the entire week and cannot be benched.

If an owner fails to set a playoff-legal pitching staff before roster lock on the first day of the week, pitchers will be assigned to the playoff pitching staff in the order that they appear in MLB games until the team has a legal staff.

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 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.

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.