Think that negotiations between MLB owners and players are simply millionaires battling each other? Think again.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

“But the two sides aren’t equal as a general thing. The minimum major league salary this year is $780,000. That’s a significant advance over 2010, when it was $400,000 (about $616,000 in today’s money) and it sounds like a lot for, say, a 22-year-old kid fresh out of the sticks. But the context is that it applies to those who, having made a team and stayed in the lineup all season, are among the 720 most exceptionally talented athletes in the country and, increasingly, the world.

The MLB owners are in a different stratosphere from even the best-paid ballplayers. Soto’s record contract from the Mets is valued at $765 million over 15 years, but of the owners of the 30 MLB teams, 27 are billionaires, topped by hedge fund magnate Steve Cohen of the Mets, who has a net worth of $22 billion. The investment tycoon Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ majority owner (and controlling shareholder of the NBA Lakers, which he is selling), clocks in at third place, with $13.3 billion.

It’s tempting to treat the superstars with contracts at the high nine-figure level — the Juan Sotos, Aaron Judges, Shohei Otanis — as representative of the class. But the average length of a ballplayer’s career is about five years, according to an academic survey published in 2011. That’s probably an overestimate since it applies to those who have made it through a season, not players who reach the show for the proverbial cup of coffee and wash out so quickly they don’t even make it into the database.”

Read the full story at the LA Times here.