Before we get into round 3, a determination needs to be made on which 48 teams advance. Per the rules, exactly 6 teams from each franchise will advance (the four playoff teams and the teams with the next two best records). Also, per rules, no person can have more than 4 teams advance. A handful of people started round 2 with more than 4 teams, so this could effect multiple people

If anybody has more than 4 teams that are *qualified* to advance, the lowest ranking team(s) are dropped and the franchise (the dropped teams are from), will get a the team with the next best record to advance. In no instance will a franchise get more than 6 teams to advance to round 3.

The 48 teams will be ranked by (1) W-L record over 162 games (2) Expected Winning% (3) Home field win%. Any teams that get "moved up" from non-qualifying to qualifying status due to somebody having to drop teams, those teams will rank behind the qualifying teams, regardless of their W-L record.

Once the 48 teams are determined, a draft order will be calculated. The order will be based on the Round 2 rankings defined above. The top 4 teams will get to pick which league they want to play in and which single-season team they want to start their round 2 roster build with. Once that selection process has completed, the rest of the 48 teams will be slotted into the two leagues, according a predefined algorithm. Trading picks will be allowed before and during the draft.

Since there are 2 leagues in round 3, and 4 teams per person is the max, no person will be allowed to have more than 2 team per league. Also, for those with multiple teams, your teams must be split up into different leagues. And if you have 2 teams in a league, that have to be on opposite sides of the league (AL, NL).

These are how the two leagues will be aligned.

League 1: 1885-1891 teams (122 teams)
League 2: 1892-1900 teams + 1901-02 Orioles + 1914-15 Federal League teams (122 teams)

Within each league, there will be a 5-round draft, where you will draft 4 single-season teams (from your defined season range). The fifth round is a single player draft (from any of the undrafted seasons from your season-range). You must roster exactly 6 players from each of your four drafted teams. The single player you select in round 5 is your 25th player. You still get one clone (can come from the drafted teams or the 25th player from round 5).

The draft is a normal serpentine draft
Round 1: 1-12 (pick a year) --> the draft order is based on the round 2 rankings
Round 2: 12-1 (pick a year)
Round 3: 1-12 (pick a year)
Round 4: 12-1 (pick a year)
Round 5: 1-12 (pick a player from an undrafted team)

(The single-season team's real-life winning% is irrelevant this round)

Other Details
Salary Cap: None
DH, WW, AAA, Injuries: No
Clones: Only one clone allowed.
Ballpark: Must use WhatifSports Park
Division Alignment: When selecting their first season, each person will also select which division to play in. Those with two teams in a league must put one team in the NL and one in the AL.

The top 6 teams from each half of each league will advance to round 4. Similar rules apply regarding the maximum number of teams one person can have. That maximum is 2 teams.

There is the question of how to deal with the 1890 Players league Giants vs. the 1890 National League Giants?

There's not an easy way to differentiate these teams in the search engine, so you'll have to use baseball-reference to parse out which players play on each team.

National League New York Giants --> https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYG/1890.shtml

Player's League New York Giants --> https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYI/1890.shtml

American Association Philadephia Athletics --> https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PHA/1890.shtml

Player's League Philadephia Athletics --> https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PHQ/1890.shtml