I think it does matter. All my drives were in good working condition when they were stored in the cabinet. After letting them sit for a couple of years, some exhibited issues regardless of if they had data or not. One of these only had about two thousand hours of use.But does it matter if I don't really care about the data until I plug them in?
I believe it is possible for drives to degrade while in storage for an exceptionally long time. Also, warranty starts on the date of purchase, not the day you put it in to use.
However, if you are expecting for some drives to die within a reasonable period (like having some old drives in an array) then it's still worth keeping a few on hand to use a replacement.
This is just my humble opinion. Others might be able to provide more insight on this topic.