What is the LIDOM Round Robin?

A Walkthrough Of The Dominican Winter League’s Playoff

The Dominican Winter League has been a part of my offseason entertainment for a few years now, and every season is just as exciting, and passionate as the one before. But they do things a little different than our beloved MLB does. Let’s get into it.

The regular season for them is 50 games, beginning in mid-October. The four teams with the best records advance to the “Round Robin.” The Round Robin is an 18 game Round Robin style playoff, where every team plays each other 6 times (not in a series setting). The two teams with the best records at the end of the 18-game Round Robin advance to a best-of-seven championship series. The winner of that, wins the title. The winner of LIDOM, gets the honor to represent the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Series, about a week later.

Here is the Round Robin Schedule (via @lidomrd on X):

The great Tigres del Licey have won the LIDOM championship in back-to-back years. Last year, despite a rather rough regular season, they rallied at the end to make the Round Robin, and win it all. Tigres Del Licey doesn’t need the most talent to win. They are the most fundamentally sound club consistently, and have a roaring crowd of Licey fans at their home ballpark (which they share with Albert Pujols’ club, Leones del Escogido).

The Caribbean Series this season, takes place in Mexicali, Mexico. Last year it was in Miami, where the Tiburones de la Guaira (managed by Ozzie Guillen) from the Venezuelan league won. They beat Tigres del Licey in the championship. that were trying to go back to back in the Caribbean series as well.

The 2025 Caribbean Series will feature:

• Mexico

• Venezuela

• Dominican Republic

• Puerto Rico

• Japan (Guest Country, and first EVER appearance in the CS)

I am extremely excited that Japan is a part of this contest this January.

But I’m not here to write about the Caribbean series! As I get off track, I’ll reel us back into LIDOM, leaving the Caribbean series behind.

As far as LIDOM history goes, here is the league champion count:

• Tigres del Licey - 24

• Aguilas Cibeanas - 22

• Leones del Escogido - 16

• Estrellas Orientales - 3

• Toros del Este - 3

• Gigantes del Cibao - 2

This year, Estrellas Orientales (managed by Fernando Tatis), have the best record heading into the Round Robin. Something noteworthy, is that the Estrellas have lost in the championship series THREE years in a row. Back to back losses to Tigres del Licey.

Here are the complete standings from this year’s regular season (via @lidomrd on X):

In my opinion, by far the most INTERESTING part of the LIDOM season, is the draft de reingreso (re-entry draft). In a nutshell, each team that advances to the Round Robin, gets to draft SIX players from the eliminated two teams (Gigantes & Toros). Here is the draft order for this season (via @lidomrd on X):

To follow the draft order, here are the draft results (via @lidomrd on X):

Twenty-four players from teams that are eliminated get a chance to play for glory for their temporary team. I think it’s such an interesting wrench to throw into the tournament, and it makes it very exciting. The best teams get better, the stakes get higher, the pace picks up, and the best rise above.

This season has been exciting. the Leones had an extremely hot start to the season, but fizzled as the season went on, and snuck into the Round Robin.

The Aguilas (managed by Yadier Molina) are following a pretty disastrous 2023/2024 season and have qualified for the dance as well.

The Tigres and Estrellas have been a staple in the Round Robin for a few years now and really seem to have developed a “Dodgers/Padres” type of rivalry.

To wrap this all up, I’d love to see Las Estrellas raise the trophy this year. They’ve fallen just short in three straight years, and they have a chance to prove everybody wrong. If you want to watch the Round Robin, go to MLB TV’s website (or app), and purchase the “Offseason Package". It is $29.99, and you can watch every game (in Spanish), as well as almost every Spring Training game! It is the best value that MLB TV offers, in my opinion, all year long.

I hope you learned something by reading this, and I hope you get to sit down and watch some LIDOM this month! I will be posting my LIDOM picks every evening on my Chalkboard and X account (@nicksMLBpicks).

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