Well, it’s about two months too late to help the Twins, but it looks like MLB is going to adopt a new rule that says in cases of home field advantage in tiebreaker playoff games following the end of the regular season, head-to-head competition and not a coin flip will determine who gets the game at their site. This would have benefited the Twins this past season; they won the season series with the White Sox 10-8 but lost the coin flip and had to play the one-game playoff in Chicago. They also whined about it incessantly — think of a three-year-old who would really like some ice cream or doesn’t want to go to bed — and the squeakiest wheel got the grease. From the AP:

Rather than heads or tails, baseball general managers plan to recommend that sites for division and wild-card tiebreakers be decided by wins and losses.

“The team that performed better against the other team I think is the one that deserves to have home-field advantage, not an arbitrary coin flip,” San Diego Padres general manager Kevin Towers said Thursday as the annual GMs meeting ended.

MLB staff is drafting a proposal for the GMs to consider next month when they gather at the winter meetings in Las Vegas, according to Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner’s office. Head-to-head record between the tied clubs appears likely to be the first tiebreaker.

“I think it’s better to decide it on the field,” Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels said.

This is, of course, a common sense move. And we ask you now: what other common sense rule changes would enhance the sports we love?

Fasola-link! (First anniversary edition!) What ants can teach us about urban planning.

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