AJ Mass, ESPN Staff Writer 7y

Points leagues breakdown: closers, rankings and more

Fantasy MLB, Fantasy, MLB

Is your fantasy team struggling for starting pitching? If you're not one of the many owners scouring the waiver wire for injury replacements on the regular, perhaps you might want to run out and buy yourself a lottery ticket.

Consider the following list: Madison Bumgarner, Cole Hamels, Hisashi Iwakuma, James Paxton, Felix Hernandez, Aaron Nola, Sean Manaea, Wei-Yin Chen, Brandon McCarthy, Ian Kennedy, James Shields, Brett Anderson, Steven Wright, Shelby Miller and, as of Thursday, Francisco Liriano. Those are just some of the seemingly endless list of pitchers who have gone on the disabled list over the past few weeks.

True, it's not always a bad thing when a pitcher ends up missing two weeks due to injury. Liriano's 6.35 ERA wasn't doing anyone any favors. But if you suddenly find yourself down an elite arm like Bumgarner, it will be very hard to find an adequate replacement. That's where my "rule of seven" can help.

The "rule of seven" is actually quite simple. It refers to any starter who has

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