Colorado Rockies 2b Eric Young will be more valuable next year than Justin Morneau. He’ll be more valuable than Dustin Pedroia. He’ll help fantasy owners more than Derek Jeter. He’ll be better than Brian Roberts and Carlos Beltran and Kevin Youkilis and…

Have we caught your attention yet?

As we relaunch FBJ and gear up for the 2010 fantasy baseball season, we start out by noting that projection season is upon us. CHONE is first up to bat here having recently released their set of projections on batters. As we did last season, we take the projections and filter them through a fantasy value calculator in standard 5 category leagues (HR, R, RBI, SB, AVG).

Here’s the top 10 for 2010 in fantasy leagues according to CHONE:

1. Hanley Ramirez
2. Albert Pujols
3. Ryan Braun
4. Prince Fielder
5. Ryan Howard
6. Miguel Cabrera
7. Matt Holliday
8. Alex Rodriguez
9. Carl Crawford
10. David Wright

Nothing truly shocking. But then there’s Eric Young.

Here’s his projected line: 8 HR, 101 runs, 38 RBI, 39 steals, .276 average in 493 AB

This amounts to a top 30 player according to our calculator, and frankly, that’s enough to make us question the sanity of our calculator.

But then…we look at ESPN’s value calculator for the 2009 season and we notice that Michael Bourn rated as the 19th most valuable batter in standard fantasy baseball leagues. (Did you realize that?)

Here was Bourn’s line last year:  3 HR, 97 R, 35 RBI, 61 steals, .285 average in 606 AB.

In other words, CHONE is projecting less steals  and a slightly lower average for Young, but better numbers for the youngster in the other categories with 100+ less at-bats.

Can Young really hit 8 HR? Well, it’s Colorado. Can he score 100 R? If he’s playing top of the lineup, why not? His OBP in the minors had always been stellar.

Anyway, if Eric Young hits these projections, he will indeed be very valuable. Our calculator doesn’t even adjust for the fact that he plays the scarce 2B position. Something to think about…