With a week to go before the Haru banzuke drops, it’s time for the Crystal Ball to make its prediction. I’ve written about “banzuke math” before, but here is a concrete illustration. First, the straightforward top 8 ranks:
Hatsu yusho winner Terunofuji remains the sole Yokozuna, the incumbent Ozeki are ordered according to their Hatsu win totals, and the newly promoted Ozeki occupies the lowest spot at that rank, as is tradition. At Sekiwake, Daieisho slides over to the East side, and Wakamotoharu, the only maegashira with a clear promotion case, reclaims the rank he lost after November. Finally, Abi, who only “deserves” to be ranked M1w, had by far the next-best promotion case and is a lock to occupy the East Komusubi rank. After that, things get messier. Here’s where everyone deserves to be ranked based on their Hatsu rank and record, with rikishi movement calculated according to the difference between their wins and losses:
This illustrates the difficulty of banzuke making. There are big gaps at some ranks and major logjams at others, and yet each rank must be occupied by one and only one rikishi. Starting at the top, someone has to be the West Komusubi, and it can’t be Ura (a 6-9 Komusubi has never held rank in 125 instances) or Atamifuji. So it’s essentially a coin flip between Nishikigi and Asanoyama. Whichever way that coin comes up, the loser will compete with Ura for M1e/M1w, and Atamifuji should occupy M2e (yes, only a half-rank drop after a 6-9 record, and yes, there’s precedent). We still have several ranks to fill, since Tobizaru can’t go any higher than M4e, which means generous promotions for the likes of Oho, Meisei, and Takanosho, as well as a lenient demotion for Midorifuji. And these trends will continue down pretty much the entire banzuke. I won’t go through the whole thing, but here’s my final guess:
While I think this should get the broad outlines right, there are quite a few spots where the guess could be off by a rank or more. You’ll note that I’ve opted for 5 exchanges between Makuuchi and Juryo, with Nishikifuji, Kitanowaka, Roga, Daiamami, and Takerufuji taking the places of Aoiyama, Bushozan, Tomokaze, Takarafuji, and Hokuseiho. The first 3 demotions on this list are certain, while Takarafuji and Hokuseiho posted rank-record combinations that deserve to drop to Juryo but are not completely unsalvageable. Nishikifuji and Kitanowaka have obvious strong promotion claims. Takerufuji is actually slightly ahead of Roga and Daiamami by the numbers, but getting promoted from deep in the division tends to be more of an uphill battle. Daiamami, of course, is hard to deny by virtue of his winning record at the topmost rank in Juryo. I have all three coming up (and apparently there’s informal confirmation of Takerufuji’s promotion in an interview with Terunofuji).
A week from today, we’ll see what the shimpan department actually decided. In the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments.
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Will injured Hokuseiho really drop down from M8 to Juryo? Seems quite a long way. Six wins left to kachikoshi, one line down for each, could be M14/15? East/west differences not included. Or would it be the wrong way to count? Only two wins, get him out of makuuchi?
I count it as 2 wins and 13 losses/absences, which nominally takes him down 11 ranks. There’s not a ton of precedents for 2 wins from M8, but they all ended up in Juryo except for one guy who hung on at M17. I’d say it’s not a certainty that he drops, but it’s highly likely. They may take into account that he’s known to be absent in March, so why have him take up a Makuuchi slot?
Thanks for the explanation! Quite a pity for him, then…
Also seems like he is suspended whilst bullying charges are investigated so unlikely that he catches any breaks at this moment.
Yeah I debated putting that in the post and decided not to since it’s mostly rumors at this point, but it certainly didn’t make me more likely to include him in my makuuchi guess.
Actually I read about the bullying suspicion, but didn‘t remember when writing. Nevertheless, the empathy was meant more generally for rikishi who slide down the banzuke for suffering injuries. I‘m happy for Asanoyama that he came back in time during november and secured his good results in hatsu basho with only a couple of days absent.
I’ve always been bothered by this. Iksumo explained to me the policy, which is to treat an absence like a defeat, and I accept that is the policy. But, if the aim was to have a banzuke that reflected the abilities of the rikishi, you wouldn’t do that. It can lead to gross under-ranking, sometimes to the benefit of the rikishi, it must be said. The classic example is Abi. He had a 15 day kyujo and was demoted from komosubi to M9. He came back and won the next basho with a powder-puff schedule.
Yeah, if it were up to me, I’d treat partial absences differently (maybe more like they did for the basho when like half the division withdrew due to covid). 15-day absences need a separate policy, and there’s been a lot of fan discussion about what might work without encouraging absences and/or clogging up the banzuke.
@Redfearn – the issue is that the banzuke isn’t really about reflecting the abilities of the rikishi otherwise you’d have plenty of guys who wouldn’t start out in Jonokuchi. It’s about reflecting the results of the previous basho and making a record of the results on the dohyo.
The reason you have to count absences as losses is otherwise guys could pick-and-choose who they went against and who they rested up for so they could put everything into the next day. EVERYONE is injured to some extent or another, so it’d be impossible to police against. And doing it this way rewards longevity/lack of injury. Well, except in the case of Takarafuji..
The first (fusen) absence would certainly have to count as an actual loss, as it does now, and you could have a rule about being able to reenter only once, but it’s certainly a tricky balance.
As Josh said. Though it’s great when a given rikishi’s ranking accurately reflects his ability, it’s not really intended to do that; the intention is to reflect cumulative performance. Ability is merely implied. That aside, things would get very subjective if they tried to include ability in their re-ranking decisions in a more direct way. The question of what to do with absent rikishi is just the most visible aspect of that conundrum.
That being said, the primary reason I put Asanoyama at komusubi rather than Nishikigi is essentially acknowledged ability (with a dash of make-good for him not going to sanyaku on the November banzuke). ;)
A lot of interesting aspects, helpful to get more into the subject.
Thank you, everybody.
The Miyagino thing hit me right in the stomach. Awful and sad.
I demoted Endo for Tokihayate, sounds insane but there is precedent for similar exchanges, may end up looking stupid. I have Takerufuji ahead of Roga/Daiamami, looking at past history big scores from deep down in Juryo generally do pretty well when it comes to placement in Makuuchi(as opposed to the question of whether they get promoted).
I factored in more joi bias than you did – I have Gonoyama ahead of Tsurugisho and Hiradoumi, Takayasu ahead of Onosho, Shodai ahead of Kotoshoho, and Ryuden ahead of Sadanoumi/Shonannoumi.
I also have Asanoyama ahead of Ura, but frankly I’m not quite sure why I did that.
I feel like Tokihayate vs. Takerufuji on day 15 was a playoff for the final spot, but of course they don’t have to hold themselves to that.
I looked at the order of the Juryo guys for a while; thought I found a precedent that argued for Takerufuji below the other two, but it could easily go the other way.
In terms of joi bias, I didn’t factor it in as much as I usually do because the demotions were already so lenient, so I went with the lower-ranked KK guys for most of the ties.
The reason not to have Ura at M1e is that it’s an extremely lenient demotion. I argued myself into it given the alternative, but I don’t think it’s a given.
I don’t think Endo is a guy they would demote unless they absolutely had to.
Endo survives!
We’ll see, a number of folks over on GTB have him going down and bringing up Tokihayate (or Tohakuryu).
Might want to change up the Scandal counter. Seems Hokusekio has been stealing and bullying Stable members. This is no longer tabloids, it’s been confirmed.
Yup, waiting for Andy to write it up. Terrible. JSA decision on consequences expected on the 23rd.
Hokuseiho of all people – never looked like one who would be particularly motivated for anything as devious as that. And, imagine having to face the wrath of Hakuho!
Does not sound like there was much “wrath” there.
The Hokuseiho story is uglier than I expected…
Hokuseiho intai, Miyagino seriously demoted and another oyakata from the ichimon will take over as the heya master for Haru, and then provide guidance to Hakuho on how to run a heya.
This is nightmare…
Having read what Hokuseiho was doing, though, it sounds appropriate. But yes, it’s not a good day.
I am deeply disappointed because of Miyagino… As it turned out he was several times reported about the wrongdoing of this prick who used to be Hokuseiho.
And he did nothing. This latter thing makes me very very sad and disappointed.