Flipping coin flips

Major league baseball is trying to come up with a new system to decide where to play one-game playoffs other than flipping a coin.

Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, said Tuesday at the Winter Meetings that he'll try to have a proposal ready for the next quarterly owners meetings on Jan. 15-16 in the Phoenix area. Instead of coin flips, the first tiebreaker to determine where a game would be played would be the head-to-head records of the competing clubs.

"Most people in the room kind of agreed with that," Solomon said when the matter was brought up at the General Managers meetings last month in Dana Point, Calif.

The custom has always been to flip a coin several weeks before the possible tiebreaker to determine which team might host.

There have been eight one-game tiebreakers for a postseason spot in Major League history, seven of them since 1969, when the multi-tiered playoff format went into existence.

Two of them have been the past two seasons. In 2007, the Padres lost the flip and traveled to Colorado, where they lost the National League's Wild Card berth to the Rockies, 9-8, in 13 innings. This year, the Twins lost the flip and went to Chicago, where the White Sox defeated them, 1-0, to win the American League Central title.

The Twins beat the White Sox in head-to-head games last season, and the fact that the playoff was played at U.S. Cellular Field irked Minnesota supporters.

Bet it's more complicated

The new era of sports betting would appear to be here. What's the catch?

Padres still working Peavy deal with Cubs

News on the Jake Peavy trade front out of San Diego says no deal is likely with the Cubs until after the winter meetings. Padres GM Kevin Towers, who's talked very freely about trading Peavy all offseason, was at it again on Tuesday.

"It looks more likely today," Towers said late Tuesday afternoon.

Towers, who has said a deal "definitely" would involve a third team, said talks "could speed up" soon if Cubs GM Jim Hendry can make a corresponding move that would allow him to assume Peavy's contract, which guarantees Peavy $63 million over the next four years.

But, he added, "Jim and I both kind of agree that if we can't come to some sort of agreement by Thursday, it's probably not going to happen."

The Cubs continue to try to work with the Phillies to move Mark DeRosa in order to free up salary, and a fourth team could get involved. Jason Marquis has also replaced Sean Marshall in the deal.

It sounds like something might get done, but if the teams continue to get hung up on the prospects involved in the deal, who knows? San Diego needs to get a haul if they're going to give up one of the top young pitchers in baseball.