Podcast app using large amount of storage

I have seen other people asking about this, but I haven't seen any good answers about how to fix it. I listen to podcasts every day. I download them and remove them once I have listened to them. But the podcast app is using a ton of storage on my phone. It's using 15.6 GB, hardly any of which is from actual podcasts. 15.59 GB is listed as Documents and Data. What is that and how do I get rid of it? I have seen suggestions about deleting the app and reinstalling it. I listen to quite a few podcasts and they automatically download when a new episode is released. Will I lose that info if I delete and reinstall the app. Will I need to resubscribe to all those podcasts? Will it no longer know which ones I have already listened to? There are some podcasts that I have recently started listening to and I have been going back through their catalogs. Will it no longer be able to tell me which ones have been played and which ones haven't like it does now so I know which ones I haven't heard yet? I would hate to lose all that info, but I don't see how keeping track of that could be using all that storage space. Someone please help!