LOS ANGELES –

The World Baseball Classic may involve 16 nations, but this year's tournament has looked more like a Japan-South Korea invitational.

The two Asian nations have faced each other four times in the WBC and will meet for a fifth time in the final if Japan defeats the United States in its semifinal game on Sunday.

There's a saying that familiarity breeds contempt, and it's likely many fans are growing weary of Japan facing South Korea at the WBC.

Nobody expects the WBC to be perfect in its second tournament — the first WBC was held in 2006 — but a pair of teams possibly facing each other five times begs for a format change.

Adding more teams or mixing up the second round groupings could be one way to combat the problem.

Simply shipping Japan and South Korea to different locations in the second round would have eliminated two meetings between the countries.

Another reason to limit the number of times two nations face each other is to have the U.S. play as many teams as possible.

For the World Baseball Classic to succeed, the U.S. players and fans ultimately need to embrace the event. The repetition of the U.S. playing the same team three and maybe four times (the U.S. has faced Venezuela three times) could drive American fans away.

Mixing the groups sets up different matchups for the Americans, such as possible games against Japan, South Korea or Cuba, which could generate more fan interest in the earlier rounds.

The WBC needs a strong American influence to survive, because its biggest claim to fame is having major league players in international competition. If interest in the U.S. wavers, it may be harder to procure top-level MLB talent.

Along those same lines, the WBC organizers should do more to encourage MLB teams to allow their top players to play. Stars such as Daisuke Matsuzaka and Derek Jeter are playing but there are others who were reportedly denied permission from their major league clubs.

Basically, MLB teams need to take the WBC more seriously.

When Japan third baseman Shuichi Murata was injured against South Korea on Thursday, the Japan top brass talked to Hiroshima Carp representatives and had replacement Kenta Kurihara en route in less than an hour. Kurihara arrived in Los Angeles from Japan on Saturday.

That shows Japan's level of commitment. As the difficulty finding replacements for the injury-stricken U.S. team has shown, not all MLB teams share the Japanese attitude toward the event.

The WBC is a great idea in principle, but changes have to be made in order to not only keep it going but to help it grow as well.