# Projecting the 2012 Nationals, Part 4: Setting Expectations.

In this fourth and final installment of my series on projecting the 2012 Nationals season, we’ll put together everything we’ve learned about the 2012 Nationals so far and make a final, bold prediction of the Nats’ won/loss record.

Actually, what the hell, let’s get the prediction out of the way first: The 2012 Nationals will win 84 games and lose 78, for a winning percentage of .520 on the season.

Remember I said back in Part 1 that a baseball team’s winning percentage can be estimated fairly accurately using the Pythagorean win expectation formula:

$\text{Win} = \frac{\text{Runs Scored}^2}{\text{Runs Scored}^2 + \text{Runs Allowed}^2} = \frac{1}{1 +(\text{Runs Allowed}/ \text{Runs Scored} )^2}$

Plugging the data we collected in Part 2 and Part 3, that comes out to a final winning percentage of .520. Multiply that by a 162-game season, and that gives you 84 wins.

That’s not bad! In fact, it’s 4 more wins than the Nats got in 2011, and it would be more wins than the Nationals have ever gotten in a season since coming to D.C. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m very excited by this.

Now all we need to do is convince Ted Lerner to bring back fireworks at Nats Park so we can all hear Charlie Slowes make his signature “Bang, Zoom Go the fireworks! A Curly ‘W’ is in the books!” call as God intended.

You might want to go back and read the rest of the series: