Promotion/Demotion and Yūshō Discussion Kyūshū 2022

[Sakura 1,484]

28 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

That's exactly my point, though - it needs to be around 10 regardless of the specific rank make-up. That's simply an unavoidable consequence of how the tournaments work. And no, the fact that there may be edge cases where even 10 might not be enough is no argument against that, when what's an edge case with 10 is a common outcome with 8.

I suppose I just have a personal disklike to large numbers of Komusubi and Sekiwake.

[Asashosakari 19,111]

2 minutes ago, Sakura said:

I suppose I just have a personal disklike to large numbers of Komusubi and Sekiwake.

You've got company within the Kyokai, I suspect.  Look at it this way: Should Kakuryu not have been promoted to ozeki for Natsu 2012 simply because having six ozeki was an unsightly mess?

In broad strokes the talent distribution in sumo is always going to be very similar - let's say, the difference between the 10th-best rikishi and the 30th-best rikishi, that's not changing much over time - but at small scales that's just not true. Sometimes you'll get clumps in one small area, sometimes in another. That's why it makes little sense to try to use the Y/O/S/K distinction to enforce some sort of view of what an ideal distribution looks like. (Why not 1 Y / 2 O / 3 S / 4 K?) It's much more straight-forward and more fair to say, "sanyaku, that's approximately the 10 best rikishi in sumo", and let the 10 rikishi's individual talents determine whether that means they're a yokozuna, an ozeki, a sekiwake, or a komusubi.

[Asashosakari 19,111]

I get the feeling I've left a few core premises of mine unstated, so maybe I'll need to rectify that.

Let's start with the commonly recognized notion that the top 16 (active) rikishi on the banzuke are kind of having their own mini-tournament within the top division. If that was strictly true,  we'd be expecting a KK/MK split broadly in the region of 8/8 in the long run - maybe even a bit less than 8 KK if there are a bunch of dominant rikishi in the mix (i.e. what most of sumo's history has been like, but not the current times).

In practice, the top 16 aren't quite so segregated from the rest of the division. The second week of the basho sees a sizable amount of matchups made based on similar records rather than similar ranks, and unsurprisingly that tends to favour the higher-ranked wrestlers. For the last three years, not counting fusen matches rikishi ranked komusubi to M3 posted 132 wins and 94 losses against rikishi ranked M7 and lower, or an average of 8.8 wins per 15 matches. It gets even more pronounced if we focus on joi rikishi who are doing well in any given basho - cutting down the aforementioned 226 bouts to those where the joi member had at least a non-negative record at the time of the match, we get a record of 74 wins and 42 losses, or a whopping 9.6 wins per 15.

Those extra wins at the expense of lower-ranked maegashira mean that the KK/MK split for the top 16 is generally going to be more in the range of 9/7. Of course those 9 KK will occasionally include some (e.g, M3 8-7) that don't actually scream for an imminent sanyaku promotion, but even discounting those, most of the time there are going to be around 8 records for which the standard banzuke-making mechanics say that they should be in sanyaku on the next banzuke.

That's largely independent of what the old sanyaku looked like in size. Of course there are going to be some cases where the size does make a difference - a rikishi who goes 8-7 at M1e underneath a 10-rikishi sanyaku should be promoted, the same rikishi going 8-7 at M2e underneath 8 sanyaku doesn't need to be. But those effects are going to be very limited in nature. Give that same rikishi 9 wins and even at M2e he's somebody who would be short-changed by not getting to sanyaku. The maegashira part of the joi is short enough that there aren't many rank/record combinations that don't look promotable by the numbers. (And it's rather self-defeating anyway since rikishi don't magically become worse just because their maegashira number is higher; it just means in a small-sanyaku situation you've got a stronger rikishi at the same rank position than you would in a large-sanyaku situation.)

Adding to that, the records that shouldn't be in the next sanyaku on their own merits will include some that need to be placed there anyway - absent yokozuna, makekoshi ozeki, and (for better or worse) 7-8 sekiwake. That's on top of the 8 or so "deserving" candidates. The natural result: Forcing sanyaku to consistently contain fewer than approximately 10 rikishi is the proverbial attempt to put a square peg in a round hole. The competition system just doesn't support it, and trying to "fix" the issue after the fact through the banzuke-making leads to nothing but unfairness and distorted rankings.

Either getting promoted to S/K is meant to be a consistently available reward for doing well as a maegashira, or it isn't. But if it's not, they might as well scrap the sekiwake and komusubi ranks altogether and start numbering rikishi from Maegashira 1 right underneath the ozeki.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Asashosakari

[Sumo Spiffy 550]

2 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

After having fiddled with it myself I agree Takayasu is likely sekiwake and there's a possibility someone joins Kiribayama and Kotonowaka at komusubi. Has no one else noticed another clusterf**k developing in the M11-M13 area if we stick to an 8-man sanyaku, and this is already accounting for the fact that there's a lot of underpromotion going around in the joi?

This entire thing is going to be a clusterfk. Still working on the video script, but today was the last day of classes, so hopefully I can rip through it (if the COVID vaccine I just got doesn't blow me up too badly). The upshot is that the happiest most fans will be is if their favorite wrestler doesn't take it fully in the sash.

[Sakura 1,484]

1 hour ago, Asashosakari said:

You've got company within the Kyokai, I suspect.  Look at it this way: Should Kakuryu not have been promoted to ozeki for Natsu 2012 simply because having six ozeki was an unsightly mess?

I don't have a problem with a large number of Ozeki. 

[Tetsuba 32]

11 hours ago, Tetsuba said:

Hi, so dunno if the leak about Kotonowaka is completely true but the joi is completely impossible to draw without an 5th lower sanyaku.
So for me Kotonowaka's promotion is a given.

Moreover, if you don't have a 6th lower sanyaku (Abi?/Meisei?) , the joi ends up with many people stuck at the same rank including Ryuden and Nishikifuji at 9-6. 
Unless you demote Mitakeumi and Tamawashi at M5w and M6w...

So I think we'll have another large sanyaku, but I'll be happily proven wrong if someone can show me their joi proposition with only 5 lower san'yaku guys.
 

Shoot, i have forgotten about Shodai.
What i meant was less than 6 lower sanyaku (ie not promoting Kotonowaka) was impossible to draw
but only 6 (ie not promoting either Abi/Meisei/Wakamotoharu)  is still very harsh for it stucks Ryuden's and Nishikifuji's 9-6 records in place.

[Ack! 461]

On 29/11/2022 at 16:03, Reonito said:

I had Hakuyozan ahead of Kaisho because he won their exchange bout on day 15, even though those things aren't always 100% dispositive. I wrote this before Yutakayama's announcement, so that definitely means they should both be in juryo, opening up one more spot. Recent J12's with a 4-11 record have ended up at Ms2-Ms4, so that's where I expect Tokushoryu to be ranked if he sticks around. Seems like for 3-4  at Ms2w, it's a tossup as to whether they end up at Ms5 or Ms6, while for Ms3e it almost always means Ms6-Ms7.

So post Yutakayama intai, 8 spots are spoken for, and the last two should go to some combination of Tsukahara, Fujiseiun, Kawazoe and Dewanoryu.

Here's my shot at the top of Makushita:

Makushita Banzuke
East	Rank	West
Ishizaki	Ms1	Tomokaze
Tamashoho	Ms2	Chiyonoo
Tochikamiyama	Ms3	Tokushoryu
Kamito	Ms4	Shiden
Kawazoe	Ms5	Dewanoryu
Tochiseiryu	Ms6	Tsukahara
Fujiseiun	Ms7	Tokihayate
Tanabe	Ms8	Chiyonoumi
Chiyoarashi	Ms9	Tochikodai
Otsuji	Ms10	Yago

[Tigerboy1966 1,428]

12 hours ago, Ack! said:

Recent J12's with a 4-11 record have ended up at Ms2-Ms4, so that's where I expect Tokushoryu to be ranked if he sticks around.

He hasn't retired yet so he will be on the banzuke even if he changes his mind and hangs up his mawashi.

[WAKATAKE 2,650]

First makuuchi yusho winner since Terunofuji to fall and compete in makushita if he does I think

[Seiyashi 4,072]

29 minutes ago, WAKATAKE said:

First makuuchi yusho winner since Terunofuji to fall and compete in makushita if he does I think

Do we count Asanoyama? 

[WAKATAKE 2,650]

15 minutes ago, Seiyashi said:

Do we count Asanoyama? 

[Jakusotsu 5,894]

Come to think of it, Terunofuji wasn't the first to win an emperor's cup after dropping from Makuuchi below Juryo (Abi being the most recent example), but he was the first who did it before. Asanoyama might be able to repeat that (although his story differs big time), and here's hoping for Tokushoryu as well.

[Reonito 1,387]

1 hour ago, Jakusotsu said:

Come to think of it, Terunofuji wasn't the first to win an emperor's cup after dropping from Makuuchi below Juryo (Abi being the most recent example), but he was the first who did it before. Asanoyama might be able to repeat that (although his story differs big time), and here's hoping for Tokushoryu as well.

I am prepared to bet that Tokushoryu will not win another emperor's cup.

[Seiyashi 4,072]

6 hours ago, Reonito said:

I am prepared to bet that Tokushoryu will not win another emperor's cup.

I'll take you up on that bet when Shōdai goes on another ōzeki run. The usual crow? 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Seiyashi

[Wakawakawaka 149]

Random bit of trivia regarding Tokushoryu. He has the lowest career high rank of any top division yusho winner in history (Maegashira 2).

Also from that tournament...

- The only man to get 14 wins in a top division tournament and never make Sanyaku or better.

- Nobody else has ever scored 14 wins from below M13e (he did it from M17w)

- Nobody else has won a top divison yusho from the lowest spot in the division

Edited December 3, 2022 by Wakawakawaka

[Reonito 1,387]

15 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

I'll take you up on that bet when Shōdai goes on another ōzeki run. The usual crow? 

I'd quote much better odds on Shodai

[Wakawakawaka 149]

Since I'm having such a hard time deciding between 7 and 8 Sanyaku, and some have hinted at a concern of the Sanyaku ranks potentially increasing further/too-much in the near future I decided to run an 'experiment'...

1) Align the banzuke so that the top 10 rikishi are 1Y-1O-4S-4K > 2) Take everyone's win/loss records from a given tournament > 3) Build a theoretical next banzuke > 4) See how many Sanyaku there are

Step 2 I tried every tournament result this year except the 'covid basho'. Result: Each case required less than 8 Sanyaku on the next banzuke.

Conclusion: Even if we go with 4S/4K next banzuke, the 'problem' of too many Sanyaku will probably work itself out.

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by Wakawakawaka

[Yamanashi 3,795]

42 minutes ago, Wakawakawaka said:

Since I'm having such a hard time deciding between 7 and 8 Sanyaku, and some have hinted at a concern of the Sanyaku ranks potentially increasing further/too-much in the near future I decided to run an 'experiment'...

1) Align the banzuke so that the top 10 rikishi are 1Y-1O-4S-4K > 2) Take everyone's win/loss records from a given tournament > 3) Build a theoretical next banzuke > 4) See how many Sanyaku there are

Step 2 I tried every tournament result this year except the 'covid basho'. Result: Each case required less than 8 Sanyaku on the next banzuke.

Conclusion: Even if we go with 4S/4K next banzuke, the 'problem' of too many Sanyaku will probably work itself out.

 

This seems right, intuitively (but maybe not actually?)  When you get enough members of Sanayaku that a 15-match basho becomes almost a round-robin, then they can't all get 9-10 wins, and somebody will fall off the ledge

[Seiyashi 4,072]

10 minutes ago, Yamanashi said:

This seems right, intuitively (but maybe not actually?)  When you get enough members of Sanayaku that a 15-match basho becomes almost a round-robin, then they can't all get 9-10 wins, and somebody will fall off the ledge

Part of the problem this time is that an ōzeki has fallen off, and there are artificial constraints on the ranking. 

[Reonito 1,387]

10 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

Part of the problem this time is that an ōzeki has fallen off, and there are artificial constraints on the ranking. 

Although, following other patterns, if an ozeki wasn't guaranteed demotion only to sekiwake, we'd probably move a 6-9 ozeki to K, which wouldn't really change the picture

[serge_gva 52]

I tried to go with 8 sanyaku (4S, 2K) but it is impossible:

> Do not demote KK > OK
> At least half-a-rank promotion for 9-6 >> OK
> Overdemote S/K only if they stay in the jōi-jin >> NOT OK (for Tamawashii).

One could possibly argue that in fact, Tamawashii (because of his bad start in the tournament) didn't really face the top of the division (he only faced 2 of the top 5-wrestlers, unlike Tobizaru and Daieisho who faced all of them), but even taking that into account, it seems impossible to me to get Tamawashii out of the jōi-jin. Right?

So I'll make a version 2 with 9 Sanyaku.

For Takarafuji vs Chiyomaru/Mitoryu's case:

It seems to me that in general, when it's about promotion/demotion, the Banzuke committee tries not to make a difference between two wrestlers in a comparable situation (it is the case here with Chiyomaru and Mitoryu who both have the same potential of promotion by the numbers).

So, which one of them will be sacrificed? Or are they finally going to demote Takarafuji? (which after all is possible by the numbers)

Edited December 4, 2022 by serge_gva

[Reonito 1,387]

2 hours ago, serge_gva said:

> Overdemote S/K only if they stay in the jōi-jin >> NOT OK (for Tamawashii).

It's possible to keep him in the joi and satisfy your two other criteria, just ugly.

[Gurowake 4,031]

On 28/11/2022 at 14:44, Reonito said:

I think the placement of Abi is one of the keys to this banzuke, both for GTB and for the banzuke committee

I'm beginning to think this as well the more I think about it.  They have shown that they tend to favor Yusho winners over other rikishi when moving them up the maegashira ranks, at least in the cases of Tokushoryu and Terunofuji recently.  Both were promoted by more than they really should have been by the numbers, and it's really egregious in Terunofuji's case.  In opposition to that, we have the case of Tochinoshin's first Juryo yusho upon return from injury, where he got royally shafted when there was a huge logjam at the top of Juryo.  The reason for the latter is that it's much easier to decide to simply not promote someone with a good record as far as they normally would be, assuming that they lost any matches, because you can always say in those cases: "You wanted to be ranked higher?  You shouldn't have lost as many matches as you did."

So not promoting Abi very much will help alleviate the logjam, and is consistent with what they did with Tochinoshin, but is inconsistent with what they did with Tokushoryu and Terunofuji who are perhaps more reasonable analogs given the high stature of Makuuchi Yushos compared to Juryo Yushos.  Can you justify putting a Yusho winner from the mid-maegashira outside the joi?  It seems absurd, but there's no reason it can't be done, whereas there are reasons why you need to promote a 9-6 maegashira, you can't demote an 8-7, and you don't want to create any more lower sanyaku positions than necessary because your organization has been bleeding money since the pandemic began.

Another consideration that might also be made is that Abi was a Komusubi who sat out a tournament because of injury; he was not demoted based on his losses on the dohyo.  If he's not promoted back up into the joi at least, how likely is he to give a repeat performance, winning another tournament while ranked outside the joi?  Shouldn't there be some recognition after a dominant performance after dropping in rank due to injury, such that one should be returned basically where one was?  That's the kind of thinking in which it makes sense to push him up to Komusubi, and that certainly seems fair, but there really aren't that many analogs to the situation.  Plus, if that was truly how things worked, they'd give larger promotions to those that fall in rank due to injury regardless of where on the banzuke they were, but that doesn't happen.  At best they get slightly better luck when something has to break one way or the other, but that might really be all that he needs in this case, because the main thing preventing the promotion is the general feeling that joi rikishi should get the first dibs; if you consider that he was demoted from Komusubi due only to kyujo, and put in the performance he did, why shouldn't he be considered on par?

All in all, there's a lot to think about, as there are multiple unprecedented situations here.  If it was just a logjam in the joi, that would be one thing, but it's spread down into the mid-maegashira and even somewhat in the double digits.  If it was just a matter of whether one particular rikishi deserves to by Komuusbi, that would be somewhat unusual, as even in the case of the most recent banzuke, despite them going with 4 Komusubi, that was widely seen as the most likely outcome by most people.  In this case, we need to have the discussion about whether 4 different rikishi deserve to be Komusubi (Kotonowaka, Meisei, Wakamotoharu, Abi), what order those would be promoted in (even Kotonowaka first is debatable given the above discussion on Abi), and whether the logjam throughout the banzuke needs to be considered when deciding on who is worthy.

While I usually dislike the "wait for the Kyokai to maybe screw up and implicitly announce who is in sanyaku offhandedly" behavior that some people follow, it feels almost necessary this time.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Gurowake

[Yarimotsu 553]

4 hours ago, Gurowake said:

Can you justify putting a Yusho winner from the mid-maegashira outside the joi?  It seems absurd, but there's no reason it can't be done, whereas there are reasons why you need to promote a 9-6 maegashira, you can't demote an 8-7, and you don't want to create any more lower sanyaku positions than necessary because your organization has been bleeding money since the pandemic began.

This is exactly why I said what I said in the GTB thread. The kyokai either breaks their own recent precedent to promote someone to komusubi under outdated 'rules', or they create The Worst Banzuke Ever. My initial draft had Abi at M7 - I don't think that's what they will do, but they'll have to break a lot of rules and put a lot of people in undeserved spots to avoid it - or just promote someone to komusubi whose record was promotable a decade ago.

[Sumo Spiffy 550]

17 hours ago, Gurowake said:

I'm beginning to think this as well the more I think about it.  They have shown that they tend to favor Yusho winners over other rikishi when moving them up the maegashira ranks, at least in the cases of Tokushoryu and Terunofuji recently.  Both were promoted by more than they really should have been by the numbers, and it's really egregious in Terunofuji's case.  In opposition to that, we have the case of Tochinoshin's first Juryo yusho upon return from injury, where he got royally shafted when there was a huge logjam at the top of Juryo.  The reason for the latter is that it's much easier to decide to simply not promote someone with a good record as far as they normally would be, assuming that they lost any matches, because you can always say in those cases: "You wanted to be ranked higher?  You shouldn't have lost as many matches as you did."

In Terunofuji's case, he was over-promoted beyond what was "correct" relative to everyone else, but he was a known quantity returning from a serious injury absence and everyone was getting overpromoted by a lot, so if that was an isolated case, we could probably chalk that up to "get the kaiju out of the ocean" and not treat it as a significant precedent. And most of the people around Tokushoryu were treated reasonably; he tied mathematically with Enho and wound up ahead, but was behind Okinoumi and ended up a half-rank behind; Mitakeumi was technically ahead but demoted appropriately on 7-8; and so on. His favorable bump could easily be viewed as choosing the kick-ass yusho winner to fill a gap where several people could go.

Except...

Tokushoryu went from M14W to M2W. Yutakayama was 11-4 at M9W, and went to M3E. That's the part that throws me. I can see every other move making sense, even if they're arguable in some fashion, but why did they do that? M2W was, precisely, Yutakayama's spot. I imagine anyone who managed to get the banzuke right around those two probably still got that wrong. 

This probably also goes in the "it's a Kyokai WTF moment" file, but it does beg the question of what they're going to do with Abi. 

Edit: It's probably also worth noting that these are the only two recent examples, and both are from M17. The previous examples of non-joi cup winners (Asanoyama from M8W in 2019 and Kyokutenho from M7W in 2012) were from Abi's range, and neither received this sort of favorable treatment; in fact, it went the other way. Strictly by the numbers, Kyokutenho should have been ahead of Myogiryu, (12-3 at M7W vs. 9-6 at M2E), but Myogiryu went to komusubi and Kyoku went to M1E. Asanoyama (12-3 at M8W) was behind Tamawashi, even with Abi, and ahead of Ryuden (all 10-5 at M3W, M4W, and M5W respectively), but those three went S/K/K and Asanoyama also went to M1E. 

Currently, Meisei and Wakamotoharu calculate well ahead of Abi (1.5 ranks). So... if they pulled in a ninth sanyaku and it was Abi, that would be bonkers on top of the pre-existing level of madness.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Sumo Spiffy