Yeah, I listen to a three hour podcast and a two hour podcast each week, so I can't afford to close deadbeef really. Admittedly, it does lose your place in the file when you restart it after reconnecting alsa(*), but you only have to remember the time for a moment in that case, so you don't need to memorise anything, just notice the time and it'll be there in your short term memory when you reset the slider to the right point.
(*) Which makes me suspect it's actually playing nothing or in some special paused mode, as it seems to need a persistent connection to remember its paused location.