The MLB playoffs start today. Here’s who has the most at stake.

The MLB postseason begins Tuesday with the frenetic best-of-three first-round matchups. Within days, recently charmed seasons will be over. Within a few weeks, teams with championship aspirations will know whether and how they fell short.

For a handful of people on playoff teams, the next few weeks will offer more personal feedback. Legacies could change. So, too, in some cases, could employment status. What follows is a look at five people whose lives could change the most based on what happens in October, for better or for worse.

Brandon Hyde

In some ways, including Baltimore Orioles Manager Brandon Hyde on this list feels unfair. The 2023 American League manager of the year suffered through a rebuild, then oversaw a breakout season in 2022 followed by a magical run to the American League East title with a young team in 2023.

But these 2024 Orioles stepped back somewhat. They won 91 games and earned a wild-card spot, but they experienced lengthy slumps, showed a little less late-game pluck and experienced the clubhouse ups and downs that come with inconvenient baseball truths such as those. They had not struggled in the days since catcher Adley Rutschman was called up in 2022 to signal the start of a winning era. This year, they did.

Now, these are minor setbacks by most measures. And they are easily explained by a flurry of injuries that picked apart the Orioles’ starting rotation first and offense second. So you could argue that getting the Orioles to a postseason bid in any form with a rotation that was constantly being pieced together was actually the most impressive managerial showing of Hyde’s six-year tenure.

But it is also clear that these Orioles were not as well oiled a machine as they might have been, that they needed more pitching help than they secured at the trade deadline and that newcomers and familiar faces alike sometimes struggled to find consistency. Some of that, of course, is entirely the product of front-office decisions. Some of it is on the players. Still, the Orioles are in a much-hyped, shorter-than-it-feels window in which their young stars are cheap and the AL is wide open. Not moving past the division series, in which they were swept last year, would feel like a setback. And a setback now, when they are supposed to be taking flight, might be enough to inspire change.

General Manager Mike Elias and his front office have been deliberate in their decision-making, and Elias seems unlikely to part with someone just to do it. But if change is necessary, the front office seems unlikely to be the site of it. Much like someone from the Orioles needed to be on this list, with the pressure to capitalize on this window mounting, someone around the Orioles might need to be shuffled to address disappointment. If they advance deeper into October, however, the Orioles could avoid any urge to make change altogether.

Aaron Boone

The New York Yankees are as well equipped to win in October as they have been in at least a generation. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are the best 1-2 punch in baseball. Their rotation, though not perfect, is more intact than most. The Houston Astros, while very much a factor, look weaker than they have in years. In other words, it is time for the Yankees to play for a World Series. Which means it is crunchtime for Aaron Boone.

Because they are the Yankees, and because he is their manager, Boone seems to have his job status in question every time they lose in October. Since he took over in 2018, the Yankees have made the playoffs five times and the American League Championship Series twice. They bounced back from missing the playoffs last season with an emphatic run to the best record in the AL, during which Boone oversaw the successful melding of several personalities that caused clubhouse rancor elsewhere. But this is the kind of team that should be at its best in October. The time for Boone and this era of Yankees is now.

Bryce Harper

Bryce Harper has done everything he was supposed to do as a baseball player and more. He has risen to every occasion and matched every expectation. But after two magical October runs with the hopelessly endearing Philadelphia Phillies, Harper remains without one thing: a World Series championship.

His Phillies remain one of baseball’s sturdiest October entries. They almost certainly will be credible contenders next year and beyond. But the years catch up to everyone, and right-handers Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are 34 and 31. Harper, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos are also in their 30s. Time is undefeated. But when it comes to baseball challenges, Harper is, too.

Shohei Ohtani

Shohei Ohtani is on this list because he has never played in the postseason. He has seized every baseball stage and made it his own, turned up the lights and hit notes no one has ever hit. But he has never been here.

His might will be tested. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching staff is as decimated by injuries as any staff can be. Star first baseman Freddie Freeman just sprained his ankle. They have almost never been less equipped to handle the pitching rigors of October, and the National League is deeply unforgiving. And yet ... if there is a player capable of carrying a team, it is Ohtani. And if there is a stage that could bring out better in the most captivating player in recent baseball history, the postseason might just be that platform.

A.J. Preller

Entering this season, San Diego Padres General Manager A.J. Preller seemed to be sitting on as much of a hot seat as he had ever been. A decade of wheeling and dealing and several years of stunning spending had yielded just two postseason appearances and one postseason series win. San Diego finally had to wave something of a white flag this offseason, cutting back on payroll where possible and not splurging on top talent quite as relentlessly. When Padres owner Peter Seidler, a Preller supporter to the end, died in November, it seemed Preller might be losing some of the unconditional support that defined his tenure in recent years.

But then, Preller swung a remarkable trade for right-hander Dylan Cease in spring training. Longtime Preller favorite Jurickson Profar broke out. And absent all the pressure accumulated by spending and star power in recent years, with a new manager in charge, the Padres put it all together. They challenged the Dodgers for the NL West crown until the last week of the season. They enter October with perhaps the most formidable top of the rotation in the sport with Cease, Joe Musgrove and Michael King. And thanks to a few more Preller deals at the deadline, they also have one of the deepest bullpens of any postseason team. It is possible they have never been better positioned to make a deep postseason run. And for Preller, it could not have come at a better time.