How to play DreamDraft’s baseball draft game

The game at a glance

• Choose one player per team reveal. Confirm an open position beside the player’s name to lock the pick.
• Build a complete roster with nine hitters, three starting pitchers and one relief pitcher. The same person cannot appear twice.
• New drafts reveal each club once. Franchise Draft uses each season once. Your one extra shuffle is available when passing still leaves a complete roster. Ordinary drafts have no Pick Clock.
• Daily Challenge has a 30-second Pick Clock. At zero, a random eligible player fills an open position before the next team appears. Your extra shuffle is not spent.

How do you play this baseball draft game?

1. Reveal a team. Start a draft and read the team and season above the player board.
2. Choose one player. Compare the season stats and open positions. Select Pick +, then confirm a position beside that player’s name.
3. Meet the next team. Your confirmed pick fills one slot and a new team appears automatically. The separate Shuffle again control lets you pass once without taking a player, when the remaining teams can still fill your roster.
4. Complete your roster. Keep choosing until all 13 slots are filled. The result appears immediately.

A confirmed pick stays on your roster for that draft. Use search or the position controls to narrow the board when you need a particular role. The available position buttons show the legal places you can put each player.

An example pick

Suppose the 2011 Detroit Tigers appear and first base is open. You could choose Miguel Cabrera and confirm 1B beside his name. That uses Detroit’s reveal: you cannot also take Justin Verlander from the same board. Your next choice comes from the next team.

Which 13 positions do you need to fill?

Your roster has nine hitting slots and four pitching slots. Each slot accepts only the eligible players shown on the board.

A player may fit several positions, but takes just one slot. The same person cannot appear twice, including different seasons or separate batting and pitching profiles. Check your openings before using DH for someone who could fill a fielding position you still need.

CL is the game’s relief slot. An early player eligible for that slot was not necessarily a closer in the modern sense.

Which draft format should you try first?

Start with Time Machine for an untimed first draft. It changes both the team and season between picks. Year Draft keeps one available season and changes teams. Franchise Draft stays with one franchise across its available seasons.

New draft pools span 1876 through 2026 and use MLB-recognized major leagues. This includes the AL, NL and former recognized major leagues, plus the seven recognized Negro Leagues within their designated seasons. Independent-league team-seasons are excluded from new pools. Former club names and relocations remain part of the game. Some early seasons have too few clubs for a complete Year Draft.

Saved drafts, existing competitions and published Daily definitions keep their original pools, including any earlier professional-history scope. Their roster or competition page identifies that saved pool. Player records come from the SABR Lahman database and retained MLB sources. Coverage depends on surviving records, verified identities and position eligibility.

Choose Customize draft on the DreamDraft play page to set a first and last season or filter by the team’s actual regular-season record. Options include 90 or more losses, 100 or more losses, a losing record, a winning percentage below .400, and 90 or 100 wins. A percentage filter also works for shorter seasons. Missing or conflicting team records do not qualify for record filters.

World Series Draft reveals only verified World Series-winning team-seasons from 1903 onward. Players use their regular-season statistics from that championship year. Choose a playable date range and fill the same 13 roster slots, one player per reveal. The World Series leaderboard compares each eligible manager’s best completed solo roster from the full championship pool. Narrowed date ranges stay outside that board. League and tournament hosts can select World Series champions under Team record condition.

New drafts favor team-seasons from 1955 through 2026 while keeping earlier seasons available. First season and Last season are date limits, so choosing a later first season excludes older teams. Saved drafts and already-published Daily challenges retain their saved selection rules.

In new drafts, a club cannot return after it appears, even from another season or after a manual shuffle. Former names and relocations count as the same franchise. Franchise Draft is the exception: it stays with one club and reveals each team-season once. The setup checks that your pool can fill all 13 slots with different people under these rules. A shuffle is unavailable if passing would prevent a complete roster. Saved games, existing competitions and already-published Daily challenges retain their saved rules.

How does the Daily Challenge Pick Clock work?

Daily Challenge gives you 30 seconds for each team reveal. Confirm a player and position before the clock reaches zero. If time runs out, the game chooses a random eligible player and places them in a legal open position, then reveals the next team. A timeout does not spend your extra manual shuffle.

A pick, automatic pick or manual shuffle starts a fresh 30-second window until your roster is complete. Reloading or leaving the tab does not pause the clock. Missed windows can fill several open positions while you are away. Automatic picks are counted on the clock and your completed result.

Today’s Daily is a sitewide game with no league, tournament or invitation required. From October 29, 2026, each signed-in account gets one ranked play per Eastern calendar day. Everyone gets the same teams that day, each in a different order, and your ranked result counts once on the Daily leaderboard. Days from October 23 to 28, 2026 kept five ranked attempts, and earlier days kept three.

Anyone, guests included, can also play three unranked Daily drafts each day, before or after the ranked one. Each unranked play deals different teams from the ranked game and keeps the same 30-second Pick Clock. Unranked plays do not enter a leaderboard or earn awards, XP or profile stats. Today’s ranked rosters stay private until you finish your ranked play, or until midnight Eastern.

On Daily dates before October 29, 2026, new eligible guest completions automatically appeared under a recent saved guest name or Anonymous, with their best result and full roster public under a Guest label. An optional screened name can be added from the result page, including spaces. Older unpublished guest results are not added merely by opening a result or board. Guest entries are temporary and end when their browser session expires or is removed, or when progress transfers to an account. Registered ranking requires a chosen username and verified account. Signing in can preserve visitor attempts when the account has no Daily entry for that date; otherwise they stay saved as untimed practice. An older Daily can still be finished. Try an untimed format first if you want time to inspect every stat.

What do the stats and final result mean?

During the draft, the board shows real season statistics and position eligibility. It hides numeric game ratings, and names appear alphabetically within position groups. Being first in a group does not make a player the recommended pick.

For hitters, on-base percentage (OBP) measures how often a batter reaches base, and slugging percentage (SLG) measures power: total bases per at-bat. Runs batted in (RBI) are shown for reference. They aren't part of the rating, because a hitter's RBI depends on who was on base ahead of him. Wins above replacement (WAR) is DreamDraft's own estimate, worked out from the Lahman database: the runs a hitter created against his league, adjusted for his ballpark, plus base running, his position and a replacement-level baseline, turned into wins at that season's scoring rate. Pitchers are measured by the runs they allowed against their league. It counts a player's position but not his fielding skill, so it can differ from the WAR on other sites, and like RBI it isn't part of the rating. For pitchers, WHIP counts walks plus hits per inning pitched. Compare those numbers alongside the other displayed season stats and your open slots.

A dash means the source does not supply that statistic, such as stolen bases in some early seasons. These stay unknown on the board. When our main source lists a season without on-base percentage, we calculate it from the Lahman database’s hits, walks and hit-by-pitches.

Each player is rated against his own league that season. Every stat is compared with that season’s league average and with how far apart that season’s regulars were, so a 1.12 ERA in 1968 and a 1.74 ERA in 2000 are each judged against their own year. Short seasons need proportionally fewer at-bats or innings for full credit.

The completed roster receives a game grade and estimated wins and losses across 162 games. The model combines hitting, three starters and a relief pitcher, with a penalty for a large hitting and pitching imbalance. The rating does not adjust for league strength, fielding, ballparks or injuries, and the record is a game estimate rather than a real-world forecast. Rosters drafted with the earlier ratings keep them in their owners' saved drafts; the leaderboards rank the current ratings.

How do leagues and tournaments work?

Private leagues let you invite friends, draft fresh rosters each round and follow standings through the league’s playoffs. Hosts choose 2 to 32 team places, 1 to 162 regular rounds, and a submission window from 15 minutes to 30 days per round. The commissioner opens each round manually, so the round count does not set a fixed calendar end date. Finish before the displayed round deadline. A missed human entry forfeits. Hosts can allow or exclude computer teams.

Tournaments use brackets of 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 teams. Hosts set an entry window from 1 minute to 30 days and choose whether a full field of completed entries starts early. They also choose an instant bracket or a delay of up to 7 days between bracket rounds. The first round reveals when entries lock; later rounds reveal on that schedule. The same submitted roster stays in play throughout the bracket.

Hosts can make a tournament public or private. Private tournaments appear only to the host and joined managers. Get the host’s invitation code, choose Join with code on the tournament page and enter your team name to start a draft. The same code resumes your entry if you have already joined. Private results and discussions stay within that tournament.

Unfinished tournament entries are omitted; clearly labeled computer teams fill open bracket spots. If no human finishes, the tournament is cancelled. Completed entries lock. Both league and tournament hosts can set a season range and a team-record filter before creating the competition. Saved settings stay fixed for that competition.

Both have discussion threads. League discussions stay within the league. Posting requires an allowed username and the verification required for competition. Readers can report abuse, and authors or the host can remove comments.

How do guest leaderboards work?

Guest entries published earlier stay on the Time Machine, Year, Franchise and World Series boards with a Guest label and their full roster, and you can still rename or remove one from its result page. New guest drafts are practice and stay off the boards. Sign in to play ranked: each account's first 3 drafts started on a board each Eastern day count, or 5 with DreamDraft Pro.

From October 29, 2026, the Daily board ranks only signed-in accounts, each with one ranked play, so guests play the Daily unranked. Earlier Daily dates keep their guest entries and their five or three ranked attempts. Daily practice stays unranked. The other boards keep your best eligible published result. Year Draft has a separate board for each season, and Franchise Draft allows one result for each club. A name stays fixed for that Daily date or board selection.

You can submit an older eligible saved solo result from its result page. Opening a result or board does not publish old results. Private competition entries, converted Daily practice, admin tests and custom pools that do not match a board stay unranked.

Guest entries last while their browser session remains available. Guest names do not reserve an account username or create a player profile. Register or sign in from the same browser to keep your rosters and awards. Account rankings need a chosen public username and verified email.

What can you collect as you play?

The Trophy room tracks private achievements, fixed XP awards and manager levels. Complete rosters, try formats and build variety across eras to meet the displayed unlock rules. Each achievement grants its XP once.

Badges do not change player strength, draft odds or scoring. Visitor rewards belong to that browser session and can merge into an account on sign-in. Choose your public username in My Account.