MLB rumors: Red Sox scouting White Sox’ Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier

The Red Sox have been scouting White Sox veterans Jose Quintana and Todd Frazier, according Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago. Boston, along with the Nationals, had top evaluators at one of Quintana’s recent start.

Boston’s interest in starting pitching stems from the injuries the club’s rotation has suffered, as Steven Wright is out for the year with knee surgery and David Price is yet to pitch with elbow troubles. Quintana has earned a 3.92 ERA over 57.1 innings pitched this year, recording 53 strikeouts. The lefty had a rough start to the season, at one time his ERA reaching 4.38, but he’s began to find his groove again. Regardless of how high that ERA creeped, Quintana’s value never really dipped.

Quintana was one of the most sought-after players this offseason, being linked to the Nationals, Astros, and even possibly being the center piece of talks about a three-way trade between White Sox, Pirates and Yankees. Yet, the price always seemed too high as the White Sox wanted an unreasonable crop of young talent for the Colombian pitcher. Come Opening Day, the ace was still in a White Sox uniform and it seemed that Chicago was dropping the option for the time being. But not anymore.

The Red Sox have also been scouting Frazier, who is a free agent after the season. Boston has had little to no consistency in that position due to struggles from Pablo Sandoval and Jose Rutledge after trading Travis Shaw to Milwaukee over the winter. If a trade goes down between the Sox, Frazier would be owed just about $9 million for the rest of the season. The veteran is slashing an anemic .191/.280/.357 thus far, so Boston would be unlikely to give up much to get him him.

It’s unclear yet what the return for both players would be. Quintana is still under team control for $38 million through 2020. The Red Sox already acquired Chris Sale this offseason from their Sox brethren, so Chicago general manager Rick Hahn is very familiar with what Boston’s system has to offer.