The revitalization of the Baseball Hall of Fame continued with the news that sluggers Chipper Jones, Jim Thome and Vladimir Guerrero got voted in along with closer Trevor Hoffman.

Designated hitter Edgar Martinez just missed, but he came close enough to suggest he'll make it on his final vote next year.

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds got a bit more support from the baseball writers, but they still fell well short again because of their ties to performance-enhancing drugs.

Earlier, the Modern Baseball Era Committee selected pitcher Jack Morris and Alan Trammell to the Hall, so the next induction ceremony will feature six former stars.

That is great for baseball and great for the Hall — which is a tourist attraction, after all, hoping to attract large crowds.

The election of the switch-hitting Jones bodes well for another accomplished switch-hitter, Carlos Beltran. His post-Cardinals success pushed his career numbers into the HOF range.

Hoffman's election was further validation of the huge role that closers played in the modern game. Yes, saves are very, very important.

And speaking of specialists, Martinez will blaze a trail for DH-type hitters when he gets in. He will defeat the "all-around player" argument while making a case for pure hitters with limited fielding skills.

With Morris finally getting in through the back door, pitcher Mike Mussina's case got stronger. He is progressing with voters and his statistical comparisons to Morris should eventually get him enshrined.

Thome's election would help make a case for Mark McGwire, but for Big Mac's PED abuse. Both players hit a ton of homers during an industry-wide power surge.

So many hitters were whacking so many homers that the long ball became devalued. Thome's election restored some of its value.

If Clemens and Bonds make the Hall of Fame some day -- and how can they not, given their historic place in Our National Pastime -- how can McGwire be excluded?

Here is what the pundits wrote about the Hall of Fame selections:

David Schoenfield, ESPN.com: "With Chipper Jones (97.2 percent), Vladimir Guerrero (92.9), Jim Thome (89.8) and Trevor Hoffman (79.9) joining Jack Morris and Alan Trammell, elected in December by the Modern Era committee, we’ll have six living players giving speeches on July 29. In electing four new members, the BBWAA matched its generosity from 2015, when Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio were elected. The BBWAA has now elected 13 players over the past four years, matching the most ever over a four-year period. Throw in three players elected in 2014 and that’s 16 in five years. This is a good thing. Compared to other eras, the 1980s and 1990s had been vastly underrepresented. When the BBWAA threw a shutout in 2013 -- the induction ceremony that summer featured an umpire who had been dead since 1935, an owner who helped keep the color barrier intact, and a catcher who caught barehanded -- there were concerns voters were going to dismiss an entire era of baseball. Even with four new inductees, there’s still a logjam of viable Hall of Fame candidates. The BBWAA remains tough and disciplined in its voting and Cooperstown is still the most difficult Hall of Fame to gain entrance."

Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports: "In his time, there’d be better hitters. There’d be better players. Only a few. But they were out there. Nobody, though, ever, looked quite like Vlad (Guerrero), played quite like Vlad, hit quite like Vlad, lunged, spun, lifted, separated, hacked, emergency-hacked, DEFCON 1-hacked and flat put the barrel on the ball quite like Vlad. Genius, it was. A gift, too. One at-bat he’d finish standing straight up, having hands-ed to the left-field line a pitch that might otherwise have clipped his visor, the next he’d finish like he’d broomed a marble from under the sofa, that ball looping toward right. When Vlad was a rookie, F.P. Santangelo recalled, he wasn’t even all that partial to which bat he’d use. When it was his time to hit, he’d browse through the bat rack, pluck out a bat, weigh it in his hands, wag it a little, then raise his eyebrows toward the owner, like, '"Can I?'

Jay Jaffe, SI.com: "While Wednesday's results may have been a disappointment for (Edgar) Martinez and his supporters, it's remarkable in the context of his having received just 27.0% as recently as 2015. The wider acceptance of analytics among voters, testimony from Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson as well as next year's top candidate, Mariano Rivera—all of whom called Martinez the toughest hitter they ever faced—and a heavy push from the Mariners, with whom Martinez spent the entirety of his 18-year major league career, have all helped to pave the way for his probable enshrinement. How probable? Since 1966: 19 out of 20 candidates who received at least 70% and had eligibility remaining were elected the following year, with Jim Bunning the exception; he was elected nine years later by the Veterans Committee."

Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic: "Some writers will change their minds and vote for the two, just as I did in 2015. The annual arrivals of newer voters and phasing out of older voters also figure to move the percentages slightly. But the minimal gains by Clemens and Bonds this year indicate an increasing number of voters are set in their positions, unlikely to waver. The process surely is painful for Clemens and Bonds, who after the past two elections probably could see a reasonable path to 75 percent. That path is now problematic, and the two will stand even less of a chance with a veterans committee if their 10 years of eligibility fails to get them to Cooperstown. Clemens and Bonds made their choices. And enough disapproving voters are making their own."

Sam Miller, ESPN.com: "We're all aware we live in a divisive time and a divided culture. Folks with the best intentions have split themselves into two tribes, unable to agree not just on common values but common facts. Of course, I'm talking about the Hall of Fame voting, where close to half the electorate believes the Hall should deny entries to perhaps the greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher in baseball history, and where the other half is willing to apologize for blatant, distortive corruption. In truth, though, the Bonds/Clemens question might be among the least important. Bonds and Clemens will both be remembered, in all their complicated dominance, for centuries, no matter what happens. As Bill James once wrote of the superest superstars, 'the Hall of Fame has lost the capacity to honor Carl Yastrzemski. It can only insult him.' Similarly, you can't really honor Bonds and Clemens by inducting them into a group of players literally half as good as they were; you can only insult them by keeping them out. I wouldn't choose to do so, if I had the vote, but they did some bad stuff and it's an understandable position. So there we are."

Bob Nightengale, USA Today: "Sixty years went by without four players ever being elected the same year, and for 14 years from 2000 to 2013, there were never more than two electees. Now, it’s getting more crowded than a TSA line. Maybe the BBWAA has softened its stance, or simply become smarter with its decisions, but there are even more players who could soon be walking through those hallowed doors. Ichiro Suzuki will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer if he ever decides to retire. Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Adrian Beltre and Yadier Molina don’t have to play another game and they’re in. And starting pitchers Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer are knocking on the door. The Baseball Hall of Fame, which should see overflow crowds this summer, followed by Rivera and (Derek) Jeter's induction, suddenly finds itself swelling in popularity. What’s wrong with the Hall of Fame voting procedures? Nothing, absolutely nothing."

MEGAPHONE

"I knew today was going to be a day that could possibly change my life forever. You have a handful of instances where something happens that will change your life, with marriages and kids. But professionally, being drafted No. 1 overall in 1990 changed my life forever. Today was another instance where my life will never be the same."

• Former Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones, to MLB.com, on being voted into the Hall of Fame.