I've been debating over on the CardRunners League blog whether a group of smart Wall Street/poker guys would have an edge against top fantasy players based on a more accurate system of converting stats to dollars.

Their argument is that to the extent our dollar values don't perfectly reflect our projections, we're making errors in the auction that can be exploited. Because for every $1 extra that a person erroneously spends on saves or steals or any other commodity our flawed system overvalues, that's $1 in savings for the rest of the player pool.

I'm dubious of this because to the extent they could build a better stats-to-dollars model, I'm not sure it would matter enough to offset an advantage in player evaluation. Second, I'm dubious that drafting off a strict set of projections converted to dollar values is the optimal way to build a team, period - I certainly don't do projections, use projections or have fixed dollar values. And third, even if it were a good way, fixed dollar values don't properly take into account risk, upside and reliability. While Cameron Maybin and Conor Jackson might be slotted at the same dollar value, their volatility is vastly different.

That said, I don't doubt that the poker/Wall Street guys also know the player pool fairly well and could compete with us even without a supposed advantage from their valuation tool. After all, it only took Sam Walker two years to win AL Tout (and he won it a second time, setting the record for margin of victory).

If I'm wrong, and their valuation tool is a real difference maker, maybe our current expert leagues will be akin to an Old Timers game.

In any event, here are the results of the CardRunners Expert Draft, so you can see for yourself how Bill Phipps' (the Wall Street Quant) valuation model worked in the auction.