The crop of third basemen in this year's fantasy baseball leagues is fairly deep, but also fairly top-heavy. You can take Miguel Cabrera (still listed as a third baseman in most fantasy leagues) or Adrian Beltre early, or spend your early picks on other positions and wait for a solid-but-not-superstar player to represent your team at the hot corner.

Two third basemen that exploded onto the scene in 2013 were Manny Machado of the Baltimore Orioles and Josh Donaldson of the Oakland Athletics. Last year was the first full season for either of the two, and they both performed so well that they each received MVP votes.

Here is how their numbers looked in 2013.

Manny Machado: .283 average, 14 home runs,  71 RBI, 6 stolen bases, 88 runs scored

Josh Donaldson: .301 average, 24 home runs, 93 RBI, 5 stolen bases, 89 runs scored

Machado got more recognition than Donaldson due to his defensive brilliance and league-leading 51 doubles. If fantasy baseball was based on defense, he would be a better choice than Donaldson. However, that is obviously not the case.

Machado spent most of the season batting second for the Orioles, which means he was hitting in front of names like Adam Jones and Chris Davis. While the Athletics finished with a better record, Oakland's offense is not quite as deep as Baltimore's. The fact that Donaldson scored one more run than Machado despite playing in nearly the same amount of games is actually quite surprising, especially given the year that Davis had in Baltimore.

Donaldson, on the other hand, hit in front of guys like Yoenis Cespedes and Brandon Moss who, while they can hit the ball out of the park, only hit .240 and .256 last year, respectively.

A big part of the reason that Donaldson scored more runs was that he was walked much more often. In fact, he was issued a free pass 76 times last season. Machado? Only 29 times.

Expect that to be much of the same this season. While Machado's run total could see a slight rise because of Nelson Cruz being added to the heart of an already potent Oriole lineup, it could also see a slight decline because it gives opposing pitchers even less of a reason to put him on base.

Donaldson will continue to get walked often as long as Cespedes and Moss do not start hitting for average again.

A major difference between these two, however, is that Machado was expected to be a top-of-the-line player. Donaldson? Not so much. This has fans wary of the possibility that Donaldson's 2013 season could have been a fluke while Machado's may have been more reflective of what we could see from him in the future.

In the end, if you are faced with the choice, take Donaldson. While Machado could see a rise in average due to the fact that he will be consistently facing good pitches, Donaldson's power numbers are far better and he can also be expected to hit at the .280 clip or higher.

While both may score a similar amount of runs, have a similar batting average and steal a similar amount of bases, Donaldson's home run and RBI total should be much better than Machado's.