Roger Stone: Why did Trump commute the sentence rather than pardon him?

There’s a Pit thread “tRump pardons Stone” in which I ask exactly the OP’s question at Post #16.

See there and the several replies after that for additional suggestions and speculations.

One popular thought is Trump (or Trump’s advisors) concerned how it would play with the voters, and might impinge his re-election chances. But after the election, it’s suggested that Trump will then full-pardon him.