Professional spriters, like those at Nintendo and Capcom, start with drawings. Then they scan it onto a computer, make it more pixellated but still good looking, then animate them. So if you want to do it how they do it, drawing will help a lot. But if you want to do it the other way, which is harder with scratch sprites, then look at tutorials. They have some at BobandGeorge, and there are sure to be others around the internet.